


Visitorial

by VampireBadger



Series: Visitorverse [11]
Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: F/F, F/M, Huge complicated families, M/M, Visitorverse, multi-generation, time travel-ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-03
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-17 23:48:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 231
Words: 283,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5889880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VampireBadger/pseuds/VampireBadger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Visitorial: Of or relating to Visiting</p><p>Continuation of the Visitorverse series, for scenes that take place after <em>Homecoming</em>. Now that all the visitors are reunited and together, things should be simpler. Of course, there's always the matter of their children. Who are visiting each other. Time travel never really ends, does it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is for scenes that take place after Homecoming. Most of them will feature B-Team (Darim, Marcello, Jenny, Jacob, Rory, Jeanne, Matthew, and Elena) and their visiting shenanigans. They're being put in a seperate collection from Visiting Hours (my other Visitorverse fic) to avoid Homecoming spoilers there. So... if you're new to Visitorverse, please read at least Homecoming before starting this one. :)
> 
> Scenes that are set before Homecoming will still be posted in Visiting Hours. I know, I know, it's confusing. There's really nothing about this verse that isn't confusing anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, this chapter is set during [Homecoming chapter 21](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5599084/chapters/13311094)

Matthew is hurting when he goes to visit Elena, hurting inside and out. He doesn't know why Momma made them leave home, but he's lonely and homesick and he wants to go back. He misses his bedroom, with the loose floorboard where he hid all his special treasures (the seashells Daddy brings home when he goes sailing, and the pretty rocks Matthew finds all by himself). He misses the smell of the house, the special smell that makes him feel safe and happy because it's  _ home  _ and nowhere else smells like that. He misses running all over the homestead, and knowing he's safe because Daddy's friends are everywhere. He misses Daddy too, most of all.

And his hand hurts too, where his finger used to be. Doctor White said it's going to be okay, but it still bleeds sometimes and it doesn't feel good. Matthew can’t stop feeling the hole where it used to be, like when his tooth fell out on his birthday and he kept sticking his tongue in the empty space. Except his finger won’t grow back.

At least he's visiting Elena, that makes him feel sort of a little bit better. Not that any of his visitors are bad, but Elena is especially nice. She's littler than him today (sometimes she's bigger and sometimes they're the same age, which hurts his head to think about), but she's still his friend. And she knows something is wrong as soon as he sits down next to her under the table.

"Matty," Elena says. No one else ever calls him Matty, but he likes when Elena does. She crawls over to him and gives him a hug that’s kind of nice. "What's wrong, Matty?" He sniffs and she touches his face where the tears haven't dried. "Why are you sad?"

Lots of reasons, but the one that comes falling out of his mouth is "I want my Daddy." Matthew hunches up his shoulders and wipes angrily at his face, getting snot all over the back of his sleeve. "Momma said he's a bad man but I don’t believe her and I wanna go home!"

"Daddys are good," Elena says, eyes wide and voice unusually sure. "Maybe your Momma was wrong?"

He shrugs and tries to breathe normal, but his breath keeps getting stuck in his throat so that his chest shudders and jerks. "She says we can't go home 'cuz it was Daddy's fault my finger's gone." He holds out his hand with the missing finger and Elena grabs it, frowning. "But I was bad and played with the bad things, so it's  _ my  _ fault."

"I don't think you're bad," Elena says. She kisses his missing finger, and Matthew is so surprised he actually giggles a little.

"What was that for?" he asks.

"One time I visited Jeanne, when she was big—" Elena holds her hands up high over her head. "And Jacob was visiting too, and we were racing. But I fell and hurt my knee, and I cried a lot but Jeanne said if you kiss owies they don't hurt as much." She pauses a second, then shakes her head. "Actually, I only cried a  _ little _ , okay?"

Matthew shrugs uncertainly. "Still hurts," he mumbles. "Anyway, I don't care about the finger. I just want to be with daddy."

Elena gasps suddenly, and points at one of the grownups sitting at the table above them. "Matty! Your Daddy's here!"

"No he's not," Matthew says. "He's at home. And you live far away." He doesn't really understand where his visitors live, compared to him. But he knows deep down in his toes that they're all too far away to get to except by visiting.

"He is, he is! I promise!" Elena beams at him. "He helped me get away from the scary place, and I didn't want him to help at first because I didn’t think daddy would know where I was going—" she pauses, and Matthew waits patiently as she takes a deep breath. Then she continues. "But Daddy was already here! So it was okay, and your Daddy even let me take Kitty with us." She giggles as a little metal something flies up to rest on top of her head, and reaches up to pat it. "And Clay too."

"Daddy's really here?" Matthew asks, and Elena points again at the same pair of legs. Matthew beams at her, then scoots across the table to hug Daddy's legs. He knows he can't talk to Daddy when he's visiting, but this is good enough for now. Matthew is happy just to be able to hug Daddy, and hold on tight and not let go.

Elena chatters away happily, working her way messily through a breakfast that she seems to be enjoying a lot. She goes on and on about her Daddy ("And he's so silly, Matty, he didn't even know my name! Marcello told me my name when I was  _ really _ little, when he was bigger and visiting—why didn't Daddy know it?"), which might have made Matthew jealous, for how she gets to see her Daddy right when Matthew’s losing his, except he knows she never got to see her Daddy when she was littler.

Finally, when he recognizes the feeling of a visit about to end, Matthew cuts off Elena's unending stream of chatter. "Hey," he says. "Hey, 'Lena. Can you do me a big huge giant favor?"

She shrugs. "Course."

"Take care of my Daddy?" Matthew says. "So he can be happy if I ever come home again someday?"

Elena nods, and hugs him again, and the feeling of her arms around him is the last thing Matthew knows before suddenly he's back with Momma, and everything is cold and sad again.

And his missing finger hurts.


	2. Chapter 2

"She looks small for her age," one of the men says doubtfully.

"She just turned two," the other one says. "And she doesn't have to be big."

"No," Number One agrees. "But she has to survive long enough to be able to use an animus. She looks like she's going to fall over and die."

"Let's hope not," Number Two says. "Or they'll take it out on us." He groans. "I can't  _ believe  _ we got stuck on babysitting duty."

"Maybe if you could show up to work on time once in a while, we wouldn't be here."

"Well maybe if  _ you _ could keep your uniform clean—"

Eighteen makes a little whimpering noise. They're supposed to have  _ food _ , she's hungry and they keep shouting at each other.

"Shut up," the first man says. He punctuates it with a half-hearted kick (which still  _ hurts _ , because his foot is huge and his boots are huger), but then he drops her food on the floor and Eighteen dives after it, struggling with the lid of the container. Lids are hard. Her fingers are little. But she gets it off and hunches over the container, taking her time with the food inside.

"Are you sure that's everything?" Number Two asks. "Doesn't seem like a lot of food."

It doesn't seem like a lot to Eighteen, either. But no less than normal.

"That's everything," Number One says. He has a bossy voice. "If we give her more, we'll just have more shitty diapers to clean later. I don't know about you, but I want to keep this assignment as quick and easy as possible."

The other one laughs, and then he kicks Eighteen, too. "Hey," he says. "Hurry up with that."

She looks sadly down at the little bit of food left, and then picks it all up in one hand and stuffs it in her mouth. They might take it away if she's not quick.

"There you go," Number One grunts when she's done. He grabs the empty container and pulls the other man away. "Be back in the morning!"

Eighteen sits where they've left her and sighs. She doesn't really know what morning is, except that it comes after sleeping. Maybe if she sleeps, morning will come faster and then she can get food again.

She lies down on her little pad, and pulls the thin blanket across her shoulders. But she can't close her eyes. She's not sleepy. She's  _ bored _ . There's nothing to do and she sleeps lots already. It's better when her friends come but they don't come as much as the scary men in big boots, and not as regular.

Eighteen rolls over onto her back and closes her eyes. Then opens them again. Closes them. Peeks. Screams.

"Hey, it's okay! Calm down—"

"No! No, no bad,  _ bad _ !"

She sits up and buries her face in her hands, breathing fast, but even when she presses her hands into her face so hard she sees spots, she can't block out the light. Or the smell—there's a little puff of air blowing against her face, tangling her already dirty hair. Why is it doing that?

"Eighteen—" she recognizes Cello's voice right away, even though he sounds grown up. That happens sometimes. He puts his hands on her shoulders, and Eighteen immediately takes her hands off her face and wraps her arms around him, burying her face in his chest and crawling onto his lap.

"Scared," she whispers. "Cello… 'm scared."

"Don't be," Cello says. "There's nothing scary here. Turn around, see for yourself."

"Promise it's not scary?"

"Promise."

She squirms her way around on his lap, grateful for his arm around her chest. He's skinny like a stick, but he doesn't need to be strong to make her feel safe. He's her friend. Eighteen leans back against him and looks around. This isn't her cell. It's… big. No walls. Or ceiling. "Where's here?" she asks, in a tiny little voice.

"This is where I grew up," Cello says. "Before my dad died, we lived here. I wanted to come back."

"Why me?"

"Why not?" he asks. "You can come visit us, you know. Just like we visit you."

"Never did before," Eighteen says doubtfully. For some reason, this makes Cello laugh.

"Sure you did," he says. "You visited me when you were just a tiny little baby." He holds up his thumb and forefinger just a little bit apart. "It was you and Matthew at the same time, actually."

"I was cuter, right? Cute baby?"

"You're the cutest baby I've ever seen, Elena."

"Elena?"

She tilts her head back and looks up at him. He looks down at her. "Shh," he says. "I'm not supposed to tell you until you're older, but that's your name."

She mouths it a couple of times, then decides there are other things to worry about. "What's that?"

Cello follows her pointing finger. He sounds sad as he hugs her tighter. "That's the sun," he says. "You've never seen it, have you?"

She shakes her head no. "What are those?"

"Clouds."

She points to everything around them that she doesn't know (which is  _ everything _ ), and Cello tells her their names. Finally she lets her hand drop back down to her side, and asks, "No walls?"

"No walls," Cello agrees.

"But…" Her whole world is walls. Four walls, one ceiling, one floor, and not enough space between them. Not like this. Space forever and ever and ever… Words fail her, and she goes quiet.

"This is what's on the other side of the walls," Cello tells her.

It's a day for finding out new things. Her name is Elena, and there's stuff outside the walls.

"Cello?" Elena asks.

"Yea?"

"Can I…" her stomach twists tightly and makes a noise. "Can I have food?"

There's a bag next to his feet, and Cello leans over to root around inside. "Not much," he says. "But—"

"Thank you!" she jumps up, accidentally kicking Cello hard, and hugs him for a second. "Thank you thank you thank you!" Because he has half a loaf of bread and some kind of dried up meat that smells funny, and it's more food than she's ever seen all in one place. Elena attacks it, tearing through every last bite with just barely enough self-control to keep from dropping anything.

Cello rubs little circles on her back, and when she's done with the food, Elena curls up against him. She feels all the way full, like she couldn't eat more food even if it was there (she would try though, because what if she doesn't get more food again for a while?). It's a good feeling, it makes her feel warm and kind of sleepy, and her eyes go heavy and start to close. She kind of dozes off, and… and…

When she wakes up, she's back in her cell. Elena stands up, her legs shaking under her. The floor is hard and cold, and she curls her toes nervously, arching her feet to try and touch it as little as possible as she creeps toward one of her walls. She reaches out one arm and spreads her hand flat across the wall. On the other side of this is… sky, and trees, and Cello and food and hugs—

She pulls her hand back and then pushes forward again, hitting the wall. It makes a loud  _ slap  _ noise but doesn't give. And it makes Elena angry, it makes her angry and scared and she just wants the wall to  _ go away _ , she wants it to go away and let her out. She screams at the wall, a high shrieking noise that isn't words, she kicks and hits and beats it until she hurts all over. But the wall doesn't give at all, it just… just stays there—

One of the men from yesterday comes charging in, and he screams at her until she drops to the ground in a terrified daze, hugging herself and shaking. The man spits one last insult at her and turns away, but Elena gathers her courage and scrambles after him, tugging at his pants. "S—sorry," she whispers, as he turns back around to glare at her. "Can I go outside?"

He laughs at her and pushes her away, further into her cell. Then he walks away and slams the door.

Elena stares after him for a very long time. Then she crawls to a corner and tucks herself into a tiny little ball. She stares at her knees and tries to pretend that nothing exists, that the whole world is just a bad dream, that she isn't even real. And therefore can't be hurt. 


	3. Chapter 3

Lucy is absolutely alone when she gives birth.  
  
On one hand, that's bad. She's such a low priority for them that they're not even monitoring to see when she goes into labor. It's just more confirmation, as if she needs it, that they'll dispose of her as soon as she's given birth. Not exactly the thing she wanted to be thinking about while she tries to push a human being out of her body.  
  
But on the other hand, it means she gets this. A few moments, just after the birth, when she's allowed to hold her baby. It's half past nine. They won't come by to check on her until noon, at least. That's two and a half hours before she has to give her baby up. Before they take the baby away and kill Lucy.  
  
The baby is too small. Lucy is worried she'll be too small to survive whatever comes next—but then, it isn't really much of a surprise. Lucy's mostly skin and bones herself these days, and anyway the baby had come early. Maybe that's why they hadn't been watching her. They hadn't expected anything to happen for a while yet.  
  
She cradles the baby close with one arm, and reaches for her bedside table. There's paper and a pen there, and suddenly she's struck with the certainty that this is the only way she will ever be able to say anything to her daughter. She wants to say something. She wants the baby to know something of her. Anything. There are one or two guards set to watch her here that remember her from before this. They'll help her (she hopes). They'll make sure her daughter gets the letter.  
  
The little bit of time she has left seems to fly past. Lucy struggles with her letter, and eventually gives it up as a bad job. There is nothing she can say, nothing, that will be enough.  
  
They come for her eventually. They take the baby away, and then they unplug the machines that have kept Lucy alive all these months. And then they leave her to die.  
  
She watches the minutes tick by on the clock next to her bed. Half an hour goes by. Then an hour. She feels tired, and cold, and there's something wrong with her insides. Lucy feels like she's going to be sick. Except she already is sick, she's dying, so…  
  
Then someone comes bursting into the room, picks her up, and hauls her over their shoulder. Lucy shrieks out in protest, but the man (she's got enough wits about her now to see that yes, this is definitely a man) claps a hand over her mouth. "Shut up."  
  
She doesn't have much choice with the hand over her mouth, so Lucy decides the smartest thing to do just now is exactly what she'd been told. But she keeps her eyes open and watches everything. This is a facility she's been in once or twice before, but she's always been good with directions and she recognizes that she's being taken out through the basement. It's rarely ever used, and there's a good chance they won't be seen.  
  
What is going on here? If she hadn't been sick, if she hadn't been dying, she would have thought this was a rescue. But who goes through all this trouble for someone that's not going to last the rest of the day?  
  
Might as well ask.  
  
"You know I'm going to die," she says when they get out of the building. The man takes her to a van parked a couple blocks away and lays her out across the back seat.  
  
"Don't be an idiot," he says.  
  
"What?"  
  
"You really think you were going to die?" the man asks.  
  
"Well I was stabbed," Lucy says.  
  
"Seven and a half months ago," the man says. "You've made it this far, you really think you're going to just keel over and die all of a sudden?"  
  
"I thought—"  
  
"You thought what they wanted you to think," the man says.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because you're an idiot, apparently."  
  
"That's not what I meant," Lucy says. "I meant why did they want me to think that?"  
  
"Oh!" The man turns back to grin at her, and Lucy recognizes him at last. He's one of the guards that has been in charge of her over the last few months, one of the more sympathetic ones. "Apparently it's psychosomatic."  
  
She waits for more of an explanation. When none is forthcoming, she clears her throat pointedly.  
  
The man sighs, and his voice is more sympathetic when he continues. "I think the general idea is that the combined effect of being told over and over again that you were going to die, along with having your child taken away, would do the job. Well, that and withholding food and water."  
  
"Not a fun way to go."  
  
"Not my place to speculate," the man says. "But I think it was supposed to be punishment for fraternizing with an assassin."  
  
"They sent me on that assignment!" Lucy protests.  
  
"They told you to sleep with him?"  
  
Lucy doesn't answer. And she definitely doesn't point out that she'd actually slept with all three of them.  
  
"So," she says after a while. The car is moving faster now—it feels like they're on a highway. "Why did you take me away?"  
  
He shrugs. "My wife works the morgue. She'll swear up and down that she cremated your body just like she was supposed to. And…" he sounds a shade uncomfortable. "We had a baby right before they brought you in. It just didn't seem right to let you die."  
  
"Oh," Lucy says. "Well—thank you. But what am I supposed to do now?"  
  
"They won't exactly be looking for you," he says. "But it might be best to hide anyway."  
  
"Where?"  
  
"I was thinking right under their noses," he says. "Now—listen to me. I know the last thing you want right now is to go back to the people that tried to kill you. But I have somewhere specific in mind, this… tiny little facility in Wisconsin. They haven't done much so far, but trust me, it's about to get a lot more interesting."  
  
"Why is it about to be so interesting?" she asks suspiciously.  
  
He tells her. And when Lucy hears what he has to say, she agrees to his plan.  
  
-//-  
  
Elena looks up when the guard comes in with food. Her face hurts, and she keeps her hand over the place where the last guard had hit her. He'd decided she was bad. He hadn't told her why, though, so she doesn't know how to not do it again.  
  
"What happened this time?"  
  
Elena sags a little and moves her hand down so the guard can see. Not all of the guards are mean, and this is one of the nicer ones. "I was bad," she says softly.  
  
"I don't think so," the guard says reassuringly. "You've always seemed like a very…" she blinks and turns away for a minute, and when she goes on, her voice is rough. "A very good girl."  
  
Elena doesn't really want reassurances (normally she loves them, they make her feel warm and a little less worried—but today she's sad and her face hurts). She wants food. And then she wants to cry. She moves away from the guard as she tries to get a closer look at her face. "Food?" she asks hopefully. Sometimes this guard brings her a little bit more than the other ones do. And she lets Elena take as much time as she needs to eat it.  
  
The guard sits down next to Elena and waits as she works her way through the food. She keeps looking like she wants to say something, and then not saying it. Finally, she reaches into a pocket and pulls something out. Elena watches her with something like curiosity and something like worry. It might be something bad. Just in case, she squirms away from the guard, putting some space in between them.  
  
But the guard only gives her an envelope and pats her sadly on the head. "That's from your mom," she tells her. "It took her… it took her a long time to figure out what to say, but she wanted you to have it. So someday when you learn to read, you can hear what she has to say."  
  
None of that makes any sense to Elena. But arguing with guards is something that bad girls do, and she doesn't want to get hit again. So when the guard makes her promise to keep it safe until she's bigger, Elena tucks it under her mat and looks up for approval.  
  
"Good," the guard says. They stand still, looking at each other. Elena wishes the guard would just leave. She's making her nervous. Instead, she kneels down in front of Elena, and looks at her very intensely. "Keep it safe, baby, okay? Don't let anyone see."  
  
"Okay," Elena says, backing away a little.  
  
"Promise?" She reaches out and puts her hands on Elena's shoulders. Elena can't tell if she's trying to be scary or not, but either way this much attention from guards is always bad. She's going to get hit again, she's going to get in big, big trouble and she still doesn't know what she did that was bad.  
  
"Okay, okay!" she says, covering her face with her hands. "Just go away!"  
  
The woman flinches and nods. She stands up and leaves without another word, and Elena relaxes a little bit. Okay. Okay. No more guards means she's safe. For a little while at least. Elena flops down on her mat and curls up under her blanket. She puts her thumb in her mouth and reaches under the mat with her other hand to pull out the letter.  
  
She's still staring at it when Rory comes for a visit. He hugs her. Elena hugs him back, instantly happier because a friend is here. "Rory," she says. "What's a mom?"  
  
He spends his whole visit telling her all about his mama, and by the time he's gone, Elena is ecstatic. She has a mom too, somewhere. Her mom wrote her a letter, and someday she'll be able to read it.  
  
Maybe the guard that gave her the letter will know where her mom is. Maybe if Elena is really, really good, she'll help.


	4. Chapter 4

He is _irritating_ beyond measure, and Evie dreads every moment she spends with Henry Green. It's his smile that does it, good natured and hopeful whenever he looks at her. And the excuses he finds to be in the same place as Evie, the way he treats her like… a woman. And an assassin. Both. As if she doesn't have to choose, every day of her life. It would be so much easier if he were not friendly with her, if he didn't make her laugh, if he was everything she had ever secretly wanted in a friend.

Once in a while Evie's control will slip, and she'll find herself sucked into conversation with him. About the Pieces of Eden, about the brotherhood, about… anything and everything. Those are the worst days of all.

Because he is ruining her. He had taken her mind and torn it to shreds before they ever met. Against her will, he had taken something inside her, and made it his. On those days when Evie forgets herself, when she lets herself be drawn into endless hours of conversation with him, it is like something inside her is changed. Transformed, or given away—there is some part of Evie that does not belong to herself any longer, but to Henry.

Those hours she spends in long conversation with Henry are the only times she ever feels complete. It's not fair, she doesn't _want_ him, and when she comes back to herself, when she is away from him and all the dangerous things he can do to her mind and spirit, Evie hates herself for letting him take that from her. She hates him too, of course, maybe more than she has ever hated anyone. How dare he take pieces of her without her permission, how _dare_ he change her like this?

"Evie?"

A woman's voice pulls her out of her thoughts, and Evie jumps to her feet. She sways slightly—she still hasn't gotten used to this perch on top of the moving train. There's a woman standing just a few feet away, and Evie studies her suspiciously. "Who are you?" she demands.

The woman studies her for a moment in obvious confusion. "This can't be our first meeting, can it?" she asks. "I know I've already met you once and you didn't know who I was. You can't be meeting me for the first time _again_."

"I don't know who you are," Evie insists. "Speak sense or get off the train."

"I'm Aveline," the woman says. "A visitor."

She waits a beat, as if expecting this will make everything make sense to Evie. When it doesn't, she frowns. "You do know about visiting, don't you?" she asks. "Time travelling, meeting people out of order, does any of that sound familiar?"

" _No_ ," Evie says emphatically. What is wrong with this woman?

"This is London, isn't it?" Aveline asks, stepping closer. Evie forces herself to stay still and not shy away.

"Yes."

"You see—" Aveline looks as genuinely confused as Evie feels. "I _know_ you met Altair at least before coming to London. When Brewster's laboratory exploded."

This time, Evie does flinch. Do even the madwomen of the world know of that embarrassment? And _Altair_? A man dead for centuries, who lived in another part of the world, possibly the most influential assassin the brotherhood has ever seen? She scoffs aloud. "How could I meet anyone there?" she asks. "The laboratory exploded, I wasn't fast enough running away, I passed out and almost died. That's all there is to be said."

"What?" Aveline demands. "That's not what happened!"

"I was there," Evie says. "I think I should know."

"You— _no_ ," Aveline says, and she looks confused and oddly distressed. She reaches out to Evie, puts a hand on her arm. "Evie, you have to remember us. Visitors, don't you…?"

"You're a _madwoman_ ," Evie says coldly, wrenching her arm away. She turns her back on Aveline, and is ready to leap from the train and onto a nearby building (her head is swimming, she has no idea what building it is, or even where they are in London), but Aveline calls after her.

"You have to remember something!" she says, with just a hint of desperation. "I helped you realize Henry's feelings for you."

 _Henry_. Evie's gut churns and goes cold. She stops.

"My husband was there when you faced Lucy Thorne, we were _all_ there when you fought Starrick over… over the shroud."

"Over what?" Evie asks, but the words are barely a whisper over the pounding of her head and her heart ( _Henry, Henry, Henry--_ )

"The shroud," Aveline says, and she sounds just as upset as Evie feels. "The shroud, that… that brought Clay back to life, and then demanded a price."

Henry. "What?"

" _You_ were the price," Aveline says. And on that enigmatic declaration, she simply vanishes. Evie stands there staring at the place where Aveline had stood.

She does not move until Henry (of _all_ people) comes up to find her. "Miss Frye?" he says. "Are you alright?"

"Henry, I—" He ducks his head and she flushes at the slip. "Mr. Green," she corrects herself, slowly. "I'm fine."

Just very, very confused.


	5. Chapter 5

"What are you watching?"

Elena only looks up from her movie long enough to stretch her arms out for a hug. Edward gives it to her immediately, because since when has he ever passed up an opportunity for hugs? But Elena doesn't linger long, she rolls back onto her stomach and points at the TV. Edward lies down next to her on the carpet. "Daddy brought me a movie," she says.

"Another Disney movie?" Edward asks cautiously. She'd spent weeks watching  _ The Lion King _ over and over and over with her stuffed lion when Desmond had brought that one home. Edward is pretty sure he has the whole thing memorized by now, and he's not looking forward to learning another movie by heart.

"Yep," Elena says. But she doesn't say anything else, which leaves Edward scrambling for something else to say.

"So… what's this one about?" he asks. "More animals?"

"Princesses," Elena says. "There's two, and they're sisters, and that one's really sad." She points at the screen, and Edward looks up at a big-eyed animated girl in a blue dress. "I like the other one though," Elena says. "She's nice and pretty."

"Really?"

"Yea." She chews on this for a while, then says, "I think my mommy is a princess."

Edward sighs and closes his eyes. It kind of sucks when Elena asks about Lucy, because no one has anything good to tell her. What are they supposed to say, your mother was a traitor and your father almost killed her?

"She's just like that," Elena says happily, pointing to a redhead that could not (judging from pictures Edward has seen) have looked any less like Lucy. "She's pretty and nice and funny and she takes care of her family."

"How can you possibly know that?" Edward asks. "You never met her."

"She's my mommy," Elena says. "I  _ know _ she's nice."

"She…" Edward sighs and (prompted by the singing princess in blue on the TV) lets it go. "You're probably right."

"Did you ever meet my mommy?" Elena asks.

"I didn't," Edward says.

"Daddy doesn't like to talk about her," Elena says. "I asked him about her, and he said… maybe he'll tell me when I'm older."

"Then I guess you're going to have to wait," Edward says.

"I don't like waiting," Elena says, rolling over on the floor until she hits his side. "I want a mommy  _ and _ a daddy."

"That's not always how it works," Edward says. "Maybe your mom's not here, but you have all of us, right? And visitors."

"A mommy is different," Elena says. "A mommy is  _ special _ . My mommy is  _ extra _ special."

"Okay," Edward tells her. "Okay. I believe you."

He stays with her through the rest of the movie, and then Elena decides she wants to watch it again. Edward only makes it through the very beginning, until they get to the part where the princesses' parents die in a shipwreck.

"Come on," he says then, shutting off the TV. "You don't want to watch that."

"Yes I do!" Elena protests. "Why can't I watch?"

"That ship is all wrong," Edward lies. The truth is, so soon after their conversation about Lucy, he doesn't want to think about dead parents. "It hurts me." He pokes at his chest dramatically. "It hurts me right in here."

Elena giggles and pokes him too. "You're silly," she says.

"Come on," Edward tells her, hoisting her up and swinging her onto his shoulders so he can carry her. "I'm going to tell you all about what  _ real  _ ships are like."

She doesn't think any more about her mom, or at least she doesn't ask about her again that afternoon. Edward can't help feeling relieved, even if he can't help feeling that these distractions and misdirections are only going to work for so much longer. Eventually, someone is going to have to tell Elena that her mother is  _ not  _ a magical princess, that she's  _ not  _ perfect, that she's dead.

Edward sincerely hopes he won't have to be the one to do it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I should be apologizing for spurting out all these chapters all at once? But like I have a bunch that were already written that I've been waiting to post until after Homecoming ended and I have absolutely zero patience so that was hard. xD And I still have like... ten more chapters that I desperately want to post.
> 
> I'll leave it up to you guys--do you want them all now, or more spaced out?


	6. Chapter 6

Elena packs her five folders and her five notebooks and her twenty four crayons in her brand new backpack. Then she adds two packages of lined paper (wide ruled), a hundred 3x5 index cards, three colors of post-it-notes, two glue sticks, a box of colored pencils, another box of  _ regular  _ pencils, and a bright pink ruler. She gets dressed in her first-day-of-fourth-grade outfit, new jeans and her favorite T-shirt with the white hoodie Altair got her for her birthday. Her lunchbox is packed downstairs, and Edward promised to sneak in leftover pizza in case her dad tries to give her anything healthy.

"Elena!" her dad shouts up the stairs. "Elena, you're going to miss the bus!"

"I'm almost ready!" she shouts back.

"Hurry up!"

She pulls her backpack over her shoulders and adjusts the straps nervously. This is her first ever day of school, and just because she's excited doesn't mean she's not nervous. Maybe the other kids won't like her. Maybe she won't understand any of the lessons—she's learned a lot from her dad and his visitors, but maybe the other kids will be way more advanced. Or maybe templars will find her, or—

"Elena!" her dad shouts again.

"Coming!"

She puts her emergencies-only cell phone in her pocket, and her little folding knife in the side pocket of her backpack, and the thin backup knife into the strap hidden under her jeans. It's so thin that she can't even see the bulge under her pants, and Elena feels a little flare of pride. She hadn't been allowed to go to school at all until her dad was convinced she could protect herself in an emergency. She's  _ earned  _ school, she trained hard and she knows she's ready.

"Don't make me send Edward up to get you!" her dad calls, and Edward adds a halfhearted  _ argh _ from nearby. He sounds like he's still half asleep, and Elena hopes he remembered about the pizza. She loves her dad, but he probably packed carrot sticks.

Despite knowing that there's no way Edward will actually make it upstairs (it's only 7:30, way too early for him to really be awake), Elena runs downstairs as fast as she can. She hugs her dad goodbye, takes her lunchbox from him (she shakes it experimentally, but can't tell what's inside), and promises three or four times that  _ yes _ she has her knives for just in case.

"Got enough stuff there?" Edward asks, without getting up. He has one eye open and one eye closed like he can't decide if it's worth waking up. "Your backpack's bigger than you are."

"I just got everything the school said I needed," Elena says defensively.

"You did good," her dad promises, pushing her gently toward the door.

"Oh!" she says suddenly, turning around. "Wait!"

"You're going to miss the bus," her dad reminds her.

Elena nods but she can't exactly  _ leave  _ yet. Not while Jenny's visiting.

The problem is that their current safe house is pretty small, and Elena's bedroom is right above the couch where Edward most often ends up sleeping (although he'll sleep anywhere, really, including the kitchen if he's hungry and the roof if he's in an Edward mood). So if Jenny visits Elena in the middle of the night, she can just barely get far enough away to reach the couch where her dad sleeps, and curl up next to him.

So Elena has to wake Jenny up, and prod her toward the door, and poor Jenny is still half sleeping and very confused, and because she's not moving very fast they  _ almost  _ miss the bus. Almost, but not quite. Elena takes two open seats and sits on the aisle, glaring at anyone that looks like they want to take the spot where Jenny is sitting.

"You  _ wanted  _ to do this school thing?" Jenny complains. "You could still be sleeping!  _ I _ could still be sleeping."

"Dad says I should," Elena tells her. Because if her dad says it, then it must be true. "He never got to go to school when he was a kid, and he says it messed him up."

"I think your grandpa messed your dad up," Jenny says.

"Well who do you think didn't let him go?" Elena asks. "Anyway, he says I need to meet people and learn stuff, so I'm going to school. And hey, I get friends this way!"

"You have us," Jenny mutters.

"I can always have  _ more  _ friends," Elena says. She doesn't hug Jenny, because they're in public, but she pats her hand where it rests on the seat between them. "I won't replace you guys. How could I? I'll never have any other visitors."

Jenny looks satisfied with this answer, but then she falls asleep again, leaning on Elena's shoulder and Elena has to wake her up all over again when they get to the school. She pretends to be annoyed, but really it's nice to have someone familiar around as she struggles through the crowd of other kids, trying to find the right place to go.

"Wow," Jenny says, sticking close to Elena. "There's lots of kids here."

"Yea," Elena says in a voice so quiet it's barely a whisper. She takes Jenny's hand, hoping it won't look too weird to everyone else, and Jenny doesn't complain. They stick close until Elena finds the right classroom.

There's a list next to every room's door with all the people that are supposed to be there, and Elena's stomach flips over when she sees her name there between  _ Meyers  _ and  _ North _ .

"Elena Miles," Jenny reads out loud. "Is it okay that they know your real name?"

"Dad says it is."

"Why, though?"

"Um… because lots of people are called Miles," she says. "And because they don't know my first name."

Jenny shrugs. "Well, you know better than—than me."

She stops talking suddenly and grabs at Elena's arm to keep her from moving.

"What?" Elena demands. "What's wrong?"

"They  _ know _ !" Jenny says.

"Who knows what?"

Jenny drags her away from the classroom and points to the woman standing inside. From here, Elena can only tell that the woman is about her dad's age, with blonde hair and a nice voice. She sounds like one of the princesses in the movies she watched when she was younger. "I know her," Jenny says.

"Who, the teacher?"

"I guess!" Jenny says. "But she wasn't a teacher—I mean, the last time I saw her was when you were stuck at Abstergo."

"But—"

"She was one of your  _ guards _ , Elena."

Elena starts to shake. It's an entirely involuntary reaction, and it won't stop no matter how hard she tries. "Are you sure?" she asks.

"I saw her last week," Jenny says, and because visiting is weird and out of order, Elena believes her. "I  _ know  _ it's the same woman."

"Okay, okay!," Elena says. "Come on." She takes a last look at the classroom, then walks in the opposite direction. "We should get out of here."

They get away from the school without any more trouble (it's kind of funny, Elena thinks, that Abstergo would go through all this effort to track her down, and then only send one person to bring her in). She hides in a bush near the playground while Jenny keeps watch, and takes out her phone to call her dad.

He sounds worried when he answers (on the first ring) and Elena cries while she tells him everything that happened.

"Stay where you are," her dad tells her. "I'll come get you."

"Okay," Elena says.

"And stay on the phone," her dad adds. "I want to know if  _ anything  _ else happens."

"Okay," Elena says again. Her dad is a reassuring presence in her ear for the fifteen minutes it takes him to get to her. But she doesn't actually feel safe until she's curled up in the backseat of the car, with her brand new backpack and all her perfectly picked out school supplies sitting uselessly on the floor in front of her.

Her lunchbox is on the seat between her and Jenny, and halfway home Elena's gaze slips sideways toward it. It doesn't really matter anymore, but she opens it up to see if there actually is pizza inside. And there is. There's pizza from Edward, and carrots and a sandwich from her dad. And then Elena sees the brownie all the way at the bottom, her favorite kind that her dad only makes on special occasions because he really hates baking. It's in a plastic bag with a post-it-note stuck to it, and the post-it-note says  _ I hope this is the best first day of school ever  _ with a smiley face.

Elena takes the post-it-note off to keep for herself and gives the brownie to Jenny. She doesn't really feel like eating it right now.

-//-

Lucy has spent seven years looking for her daughter, but whoever had taken her from the templars has been  _ careful _ . There's been nothing, not a single whisper of Abstergo's runaway subject eighteen, and sometimes Lucy thinks she  _ must _ be dead. And she regrets… with every breath she takes, she regrets that she didn't take her daughter away first, when she had the chance. But at the time it had seemed impossible, Eighteen was untouchable, and then all of a sudden she was gone.

Until now. Until this August, when Lucy does her yearly scouring of kids that  _ might _ be her daughter. Lucy knows how to find people, she'd been involved in the search for Desmond all those years ago, before he became Subject Seventeen. And she knows how to stay hidden herself, she knows the kind of risks Eighteen’s captors might feel safe taking and which ones they would never consider.

And there's an nine-year-old girl starting fourth grade this year, a girl with the last name Miles, and there's no record at all that she existed before registering for school. It's that last part that really interests Lucy—there's no birth certificate, no medical history, no last known address. Her social security number is stolen (so is Lucy's—she knows to be more thorough in her background check than the school would be). It's not  _ likely _ , but it's  _ possible _ .

This girl, Elena Miles, might just be Lucy's daughter.

She'd dropped everything and devoted every effort to being hired on at that school. It had taken every bit of cunning she possessed, falsifying her degree, inventing references, pretending an experience with teaching that she just doesn't have. It works. Maybe it's desperation or maybe she has hidden talents that even she doesn't know about. But it works. Ten years ago she'd been a triple agent, an expert on a piece of technology most people will never even hear of, a proficient weapons user and hand to hand combatant.

Now she's on the run, presumed dead, and teaching the fourth grade.

Twenty kids look up at her, shockingly quiet and patient as they wait for her to say something. She rattles off an invented history of herself, then picks up the class list to call roll. Her stomach flips over when she sees Elena's name about halfway down, and tries to fight it down. She still doesn't know that this is the right girl. It's the best lead she's had in over a decade, but it's not a certainty. Lucy pauses a second, glancing out at the faces looking up at her. Which one of them is Elena? She doesn't recognize any of them, but it has been a very long time. Maybe it's the brunette in the corner, the one with the glasses and two long braids. Or the blonde by the window, chewing on her pencil and kicking her friend under the table? Or—

She looks back down at the list and starts reading names. Lucy checks off each child as they raise their hand or call  _ here _ , and she can see the check marks getting shakier and less steady the farther down the list she goes.

"Elena Miles?" she calls at last, and…

Nothing. The dead silence that follows is deafening, painful. Lucy's legs feel like jelly, and only years of lying keep her smile pasted on her face. "No Elena," she says, crossing the name off from her list. "No… Elena..."


	7. Chapter 7

"What's that?"

Matthew looks up at Jacob and tilts the letter away from her, closer to his body. "Nothing."

"Nothing?"

He shakes his head. Talking is hard right now. He feels like if he says anything, she'll be able to hear the tears trying to choke him. Jacob seems to realize immediately that something is wrong, but she doesn't push right away. She gives Matthew a little bit of time to collect himself, and then she says, "This is going to be an awkward visit if you don't say anything."

"Nothing to say," Matthew says, after a pause just long enough to make sure he's not going to start crying in the middle of the sentence.

"I won't tell anyone," Jacob promises.

"Great," Matthew mutters. "I'm not planning to tell anyone either."

"Please don't tell me you're planning on just bottling this up," Jacob sighs. "I know, it's practically a requirement for being a Kenway, but I'd rather not see you do that to yourself right now."

"I can't talk to anyone until I figure out how I even feel about it," Matthew says. He stares down again at the letter.

"Maybe…" she sits down near him. "Maybe talking about it is how you figure out how you feel about it."

"I don't—"

"Matthew!" Jacob cries. "You're being ridiculous!"

"I don't want to talk!"

"What's so bad that you can't tell me?" Jacob demands. "We're visitors! We've seen the worst of each other, a hundred times over. How bad can it be?"

He throws the letter at her and stands up in one motion. "My mom's dead," he snaps at her. "My sister just wrote me to say she's been sick for the last six months, and that she's dead and buried."

"Oh, Matthew…" The sympathy in her voice is unbearable. "I'm so sorry. I know, it's really hard to lose your mom—"

"That's not it. I mean—it is, but…"

He struggles for words. Jacob waits.

"We argued before I left home," Matthew says.

"I remember," Jacob says. "I think we all visited you while the two of you were fighting."

"Yea, well—I used to bug her about dad. All the time, because she was telling me these horrible things about him, and they didn't match up at all with what I saw when I visited Elena. Mom talked about him like he was some kind of monster, but he only ever seemed nice to me. I wanted to understand, she didn't want me to—so she sent me away to work with her brother.

"I think—I think she gave up on me, the same way she gave up on dad. She died… thinking I hated her. Or hating me. I don't know, but I mean no one wrote me until after the funeral. I can't figure out how to feel about that. I just _can't_ because sometimes I think I do hate her. Because it's like she's asking me to choose between her and dad, and as soon as she thought I'd decided to pick dad, she just… got rid of me."

"Your mom's dumb," Jacob mutters.

"My mom's _dead_ ," Matthew says. "Don't say that."

"Sorry."

They stop talking. Matthew sits down again. He wants to cry but he doesn't want to cry in front of anyone else. He wants to see his mom but he knows he can't (ever again).

"You know who you should talk to?" Jacob asks.

"No one," he says, because that would be great. Burying everything he's feeling and pretending it doesn't exist. Just walling it off, pretending that nothing's wrong.

"Shut up," Jacob says, leaning over to hit him. "I told you, don't be a Kenway. You need to talk to your dad."

"But—"

"Don't argue with me," Jacob says. "Go talk to him."

He looks up at the house as Jacob gives him one last pat on the back and vanishes.  No. No, he can't tell his dad because that's not what they do. They don't talk about the important things like this. It'll just be awkward, a lot of uncomfortable silences… No. He won't tell his dad.

He's just gotten inside the house, and he's thinking that at least Jacob's visit is over so he won't have to put up with her nagging him—

"Matthew!"

He groans aloud and turns around to run back out of the house, but Jacob's hand closes around his wrist and pulls him back outside. Sometimes it is _really_ inconvenient, living with visitors. Especially when Jacob's so much older than he is. He tries to arrange his face, tries to pretend she doesn't know exactly what day this is already. "What?"

"Your dad's upstairs," Jacob says. "Go talk to him."

"But—"

"Go!" she insists, giving him a little push.

Matthew treks upstairs, slowly, while Jacob watches from the bottom. He finds his dad writing something at his desk, but he turns around when he hears Matthew behind him.

"Hey," Matthew says.

"What's wrong?"

He doesn't have to tell him the truth. It's not like Jacob is hovering over his shoulder to make sure he talks this out. He can just leave. Walk away right now. But his dad's looking at him with such genuine concern that it makes Matthew feel worse. He opens his mouth and oh _shit_ , he's crying.

"Mom's dead."

The look on his face is every reason Matthew hadn't wanted to tell him. He's… horrified, upset, afraid, guilty. Matthew hadn't wanted to make things harder, he really hadn't. Now his dad's all upset, and Matthew doesn't know how to make things better—

He only snaps out of his funk when he feels arms around him, and realizes his dad is trying to hug him. It's not working very well, because after talking about their feelings that's the other thing they don't really do in this house. But he's there and he's the only family Matthew has right now, so he hugs back. And he cries. And when his dad cries too, he feels at least a little better to realize he's not alone in his loss.


	8. Chapter 8

"I'm not crying," Elena tells her dad when he comes in to check on her. "My eyes are sweating."

"Uh oh," her dad says. "That doesn't sound good." He sits down next to her, careful and almost scared. Elena doesn't know what he has to be scared about—she can never go back to school again, but the Abstergo guard doesn't know where she lives. They're still safe, he doesn't have to be scared.

"My eyes can sweat if they want to," Elena says stubbornly.

"You can even cry if you want," her dad says gently. "I promise, it's not a bad thing."

"I'm okay," Elena lies. Then: "Do we have to move again?"

"I'm not sure," her dad says. "Edward went with your grandpa to stake out your school. They're going to look for templars in the area, see if they can figure out how many are here. If it's just the one, we might be able to stay. If there's more, we'll probably have to go."

"You're wrong," Elena mutters, after a long pause.

"What?"

"It's not my school," Elena says, looking more at her knees than at her dad. "I don't get to go."

"I know it's hard, baby," her dad says. "I know."

"I was all ready," Elena says, and her voice sounds all squeaky and sad even though she doesn't want it to. "I had all my stuff picked out, I was going to make friends, I even—" she hiccups a little sob. "I practiced with my knives for just in case…"

"Do you want to help us?" her dad asks.

"How?"

"Well, it would be nice to know who you saw today," her dad says. "The school has pictures of all the teachers and employees on their website, do you think you could tell me which one you saw?"

Elena shrugs uncomfortably. "I didn't see her face," she says. "Only Jenny did. I just saw her hair."

"Well, you never know," her dad says. "Do you want to try?"

She thinks about it. "Okay."

"Come on," her dad says, and Elena follows him out of her bedroom and downstairs to where he has his laptop set up. They're still getting settled when the front door opens, and Edward and her grandpa come in.

"I'm so sorry," her grandpa says. He hugs her first, and then Edward elbows in for his turn, and then after a few more minutes they get back to looking for the school's website.

"I didn't see any templars there," Edward reports. "We looked the whole area over in eagle vision, and nobody stuck out as red."

"I think she might have left when Elena didn't show up to school today," her grandpa adds. "No reason to stick around, right?"

"That's good," her dad says, but Elena has a hard time seeing the good in it. She's still not allowed to go to school.

"Here," her dad says. "Elena, look at this page. Anyone look familiar?"

"Um…" she scans it, scrolling all the way down to the bottom to be sure, but there are lots of blonde women on the page, and she really didn't see any of the woman's face. "No, dad, sorry." But her dad doesn't say anything, and when Elena looks around his whole face is white. "Dad?" She tugs at him, then looks around at her grandpa when he doesn't react. “What's wrong with him?” she demands.

“Why don't you go upstairs with Edward for a minute?” he asks, which doesn't tell Elena anything except that something really bad is going on.

“Why do I have to get sent upstairs?” Edward whines.

But Elena knows. She heaves a sigh and slides off her chair, grabbing Edward’s hand on her way past to pull him after her. “The grown ups are talking,” she explains, and Edward comes with her even though he complains the whole way that he's an adult too, and he wants to know what's going on.

“I know you're a grownup,” Elena tells him when they're in her room. “But you're not like a real grownup, are you?”

“I am too!”

They bicker halfheartedly and wait to be allowed back downstairs again.

-//-

Lucy has decided to stay on teaching as much because she really does need a job as anything else. She's gone to a lot of effort to lie her way into the position, and as long as she has no other leads on her daughter she might as well stay here and lie low for a while.

Besides, she hasn't completely given up on Elena coming to class at some point. A week into classes, she still hasn't shown up, but she hasn't been taken off the register either. Lucy isn't ready to give up completely. She can wait.

Friday morning, the school’s principal catches her on the hallway on her way to class. “Miss Fisher?”

She's gotten very used to her various aliases in the past several years, and turns toward him without skipping a beat. “Yes?”

He's an older man with a short gray beard and a perpetual look of tired exasperation. “Do you have…” He pauses, flipping through a clipboard loaded with notes and papers. “An Elena Miller in your class?”

“No—“

“Shit.” He gives her a deeply unhappy look, and Lucy wonders how much sleep this man gets. It certainly doesn't look like enough. “I meant Miles. Elena Miles.” He mutters several rude things about his own handwriting, and luckily misses the storm of emotions that flash across Lucy’s face.

“I'm supposed to,” she says brightly, when she has her expression under control again. “But she hasn't been coming.”

The clipboard gets flipped through again. “Right,” he says uncertainly. “Well, her father wants to come in and talk to you. Maybe that's why. Are you free this afternoon? I know it's last minute, but if there's some issue with her attendance, I'd rather sort it out now and have her back in class as soon as possible.

"So would I," Lucy says quickly. Maybe too quickly.

"Great, so…" he scribbles a note on the edge of one of his endless papers. "3:30 this afternoon, in my office."

"You'll be there?" Lucy asks.

"Of course."

"I don't—I'm not so sure that's a good idea." If Elena is her daughter, Lucy has no idea who she's been with all these years. It could be someone dangerous, and Lucy has no intention of putting anyone else in danger.

"It's procedure," the principal says, and he's already walking away before Lucy can think of an argument. Well. That's going to be a complication.

She can't think of anything else the rest of the day. The other kids in class pick up on her distraction, and they're little terrors until finally, finally, the end of the day comes and they go running to their busses or their parents, and Lucy is left alone.

School ends at 2:30, so Lucy has an hour before she's supposed to meet Elena's father. And she should spend it preparing but she doesn't. She doesn't spare a thought on escape routes or ways to fight back or all the horrible things that might happen if Elena is her daughter, if she has been raised by assassins, if they wish Lucy harm.

No. She curls up in her chair near the window, and closes her eyes, and goes back in her memories to the all too brief moments she'd had with her baby girl. She lives them over and over again in her head, and aches for a different life. A normal one, where she could give birth to a child and actually keep her. Come home from some normal job and see her little girl, hold her, play with her, read her stories to help her sleep at night.

Her phone buzzes at 3:20, and Lucy almost runs to the principal's office. She gets there early, and sits through five minutes of small talk that feels like torture. And then the door opens, and…

And…

She'd never expected—Desmond Miles is dead, and seeing him here is impossible. Lucy can't move, she can't even breathe. Her expression freezes, but her mind races furiously. This is Elena's father. When Lucy had heard father for the first time, she'd thought, well obviously it's not her biological father, adopted or foster maybe, but…

But here is Desmond, looking older than he had when Lucy (slept with) knew him. There is just the barest hint of gray beginning to strip the color from his hair, and there are lines on his face that she doesn't remember. But they're laughter lines, kind lines. He looks like he smiles often, and Lucy is briefly, sharply, jealous. She notices these changes, oddly, before she even registers his missing arm. Why doesn't he have his arm?

Lucy snaps back to herself as Desmond sits down across the table from her. His (only) arm rests on the table, and Lucy notices the bulge under his sleeve. He's wearing a hidden blade, and she's sure there are more weapons hidden just out of sight.

"So," the principal says, and both Desmond and Lucy look at him. "Mr… Miller."

"Miles," Desmond says.

"Right, sorry. Mr. Miles. You wanted to talk about your daughter? Miss Fisher tells me she hasn't been in class all week."

"She's been sick," Desmond says. Lucy thinks the only reason she knows he's lying is that she's been surrounded by liars for so long she can't remember anything else anymore. "Fever and vomiting, and…" his eyes flick sideways at Lucy. "Stomach… pains."

Lucy winces at the memory, and she can tell from Desmond's voice that he already regrets saying it.

"Well you do have to call her in, if she's sick—"

"I know," Desmond says. "I'm sorry, it's just that things slip my mind sometimes, with the move here, and…" he makes a vague gesture toward his missing arm, and Lucy thinks the hangdog look on his face is one of the most obviously fake she's ever seen. “Sometimes I just have a hard time.” It clearly fools the principal though, because he jumps all over himself to apologize. He's probably worried he'll get the school sued for ADA violations.

"I actually have some papers about—about proper procedure for when you need to call Eleanor out sick, in the future," the principal says.

"Elena," Desmond corrects.

"Elena, yes," he agrees, already on his feet. "They're out in the—I'll just go find them and bring them back."

"I'd appreciate it," Desmond says.

As soon as they're alone, Lucy lunges across the table, and Desmond reaches forward to hold her back.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Lucy demands in a barely audible hiss. “If you're letting that slow you down, you're obviously not the person I remember.” For all that her memories of Desmond are mixed up and painful, she remembers firmly his stubborn determination. How many people would have willingly climbed back into an animus once their mind started crumbling, even to help save the world? Desmond had. 

"It got him out of the room, didn't it?" Desmond demands. "And really, that's what you want to talk about right now? Why are you alive?"

"Why are you?"

"I—"

"No—" Lucy almost hits him. "Forget all that, tell me where my daughter is."

This, unexpectedly, seems to physically hurt him. Desmond draws back, out of reach. "You can't take her," he says. "You can't. She's my daughter."

No. No, she's Lucy's. How can he claim her, how can he claim any part of her, when Lucy had carried her for nine months, when Lucy had nearly died giving birth? Lucy had watched her suffering for two years and been unable to help, and then she'd had her daughter ripped away from her. How can Desmond even pretend to… to understand…?

But he does. Lucy can see it in his eyes, the same desperate love that won't let… won't let their child be hurt. Lucy eases back a few inches, and forces herself to relax. "Can I see her?"

"I don't know," Desmond whispers. He won't look at her. "No—"

"Desmond!"

"You work for Abstergo," Desmond says. "I can't let her go back there."

"I don't work for them anymore," Lucy says.

Desmond snorts. "Sure."

"I don't," she insists. "Desmond, they wanted me to die after I gave birth. I lied my way back into working for them because I couldn't… I couldn't stay away. I had to be with her. Do you understand?"

"I do," Desmond admits. "Completely."

"You don't even have to tell her who I am," Lucy says. "Just let her come to school."

The principal comes back, triumphantly carrying the papers he'd gone away to find, and Lucy and Desmond snap back to the roles they're supposed to be playing. Lucy reminds herself that she's nothing but a public school teacher, and Desmond seems to be forcing his mind back to polite mode.

They suffer through a mind numbing twenty minutes of lecturing about the importance of consistent academic attendance from the principal, and then Desmond makes some excuse to leave. Lucy follows him out, determined not to let him out of her sight. He's not walking out of her life now, not with their daughter.

Desmond stops at the edge of the parking lot. "You can't follow me home, you know," he says.

"I can and I will."

"This isn't going to work if you can't trust me."

“What won't work, exactly?” Lucy demands. “You're holding all the cards here, Desmond. You have our daughter. Please--” she allows herself to sound desperate. “You need to trust me.”

"I can't," Desmond says. "You betrayed the assassins for Abstergo. Then you left them too. I don't know what to think anymore."

"How about that I'm a mother who has spent seven years looking for her daughter?" Lucy demands. She steps up close to Desmond, grabs him to stop him from backing away. "Don't you fucking dare tell me that I can't see her, because she is the only good thing I have ever managed to make of my life. That's all that matters. Not assassins or templars or anything else, alright?"

Desmond hesitates. Wavers. "Really?" he says. "That's all you care about?"

"I swear to whoever or whatever you believe in," Lucy says. "Where is she?"

"Here," Desmond admits.

"Here?"

"I thought…" Desmond won't quite look at Lucy. "I hoped you might be here for Elena and not for Abstergo. So I left her in the car with dad."

Poor kid. Alone with William Miles.

But when Desmond (keeping her carefully within grabbing-or-stabbing distance) leads Lucy to an unremarkable black car in the back of the lot, it's not William there but a stiff looking man that calls out to Desmond in a British accent. What the fuck?

"Dad!" And there's… there she is, leaning out the back window of the car and calling impatiently for Desmond. Lucy stares at her, at the little girl she hasn't seen in seven years, and she knows. "You took forever," Elena calls to Desmond, completely ignoring Lucy. "Are you done?"

"Elena," Desmond says. "Can you come here a second?"

She complains as she gets out of the car, but does as she's told. "What, dad?" she asks. "Grandpa says we can go get ice cream after this!"

"Did he?" Desmond asks, glancing again at the man in the car.

"He did," Elena says. "Is your friend coming, too?"

She turns and looks right at Lucy. Lucy can't breathe.

"I think that would be very nice," Desmond says. "But Elena, honey, listen because this is important."

"I always listen."

Desmond crouches down and draws her close, fits her into himself in a familiar, comfortable way. He looks Elena full in the face, and Lucy watches from the outside as Elena looks back at him. There might as well be no one else in the whole world but the two of them. "This isn't just my friend," he says. "She's also your mom."

Elena clutches him tighter with one hand, the whole of her small body trembling. Then she turns to look at Lucy, and stretches out her other hand toward her. "Mommy," she says. "Mommy!" Her voice is different, younger, lost and found all at once and full of more hope than Lucy can ever remember feeling. She falls forward, onto her knees, and reaches out to hug Elena. For a second she holds her breath, because what are the chances this is actually happening? Much more likely she'll just suddenly wake up cold and alone and childless…

And then Elena hugs her hard enough to chase that fear away. She hugs her so hard that all of the seven years before this just don't matter. Things are waking up inside Lucy, feelings she'd thought were gone forever. She is almost flying, this—being held by her daughter in the middle of this cracked and beat up parking lot—this is joy.

Lucy finds herself easing down to a more comfortable position, brushing against Desmond as she does so. He flinches away, then leans against her. He turns his head so his mouth is against her ear, and whispers, "I'm sorry."

One of Lucy's arms is wrapped around Elena, and… well, that arm is out of commission for the rest of her life, probably, because Lucy just isn't planning to let go. But she puts the other one on Desmond's shoulder and squeezes slightly. It's not okay, yet. But with Elena in her arms, Lucy honestly believes that someday they might just get there.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is set during chapter 15 of Homecoming, when Desmond and Elena first meet.

Darim doesn't like visiting Elena this young. With all the good things that he knows will happen later in her life, it's hard to watch her locked up like this. She's his friend—of course she is, she's a visitor and therefore a friend of the closest possible kind—and it's hard to know he can't do anything to help.

Elena is asleep, so Darim resigns himself to a dull visit. He sits down next to her, and fiddles absentmindedly with the hidden blade on his wrist. It's still new enough to feel strange on his arm, and he's just managed to slice his finger up pretty good when the door opens. Darim tenses, even though he knows he can't do anything, but Elena sleeps on. That's what Darim notices first, and only afterward does he look up at the man standing in the doorway.

For half a second, he thinks it's his own father. Even though he's seen Desmond plenty of times before, the resemblance between them _still_ throws him off. Jenny thinks it's hilarious, but then as Darim keeps pointing out, her father is absolutely unmistakable for anyone else.

Desmond looks petrified, but Elena starting to wake up jolts him out of it. He walks quickly across the room, even as Elena makes a noise like a wounded puppy and scrambles away from him. Darim sees her eyes settle on him for a moment, and he shifts up closer to her when he sees she looks vaguely reassured by his presence. Most of the rest of them didn't visit that much when they were Elena's age, but she does it all the time. Marcello has this theory (which he will share loudly, and at great length, with anyone that asks), that it's her own mind trying to keep itself from caving in from boredom. After all, there's only so much time a person can spend in a cell with nothing to do.

"Hey," Desmond says. His voice is quiet, almost reverent as he addresses Elena. "You don't have to be scared of me, I'm not going to hurt you. I'm your dad."

"Dad?"

"Dad," Desmond repeats. "Yea. It means that I'm… I'm here to take care of you."

Elena's eyes flick sideways to Darim, and he leans over to whisper in her ear. "You know what a dad is," he says. "Like… Altair is my dad, and Ezio is Marcello's dad. And Edward is Jenny's dad." And Jacob's, technically, but he doesn't want to confuse Elena with absentee fathers right now. "You've seen plenty of dads on visits."

Something he says must make sense to her, because her eyes fly open and she's _excited_ suddenly, she's _happy_ , and Darim steps back a few feet to let them have this moment together. He knows this isn't the day she leaves her cell—he's seen that day, and it's a little while in the future still—but this is still the beginning, the day that everything starts to change for Elena.

Well, good for her, Darim thinks as his visit ends and he goes home. She needs more happiness in her life.

"Darim," his father says. "What are you suddenly smiling about?"

"What?" Oh, right. He's still in the middle of a practice fight. It must look pretty strange, from his father's point of view. "Nothing, sorry."

His father gives him a long suffering look, and then catches sight of his still bleeding fingers. "Come on," he says. "Let's go get that bandaged before your mother sees."

And normally Darim would complain about being babied, but today, in the aftermath of watching Elena meet her father, Darim is grateful for the chance to be with his own.


	10. Chapter 10

Elena is tiny and soaking wet when she appears suddenly in front of Marcello, wrapped up in a towel that on her is big enough to be a blanket. "Cello!" she shouts, jumping up and down and almost losing the towel in the process. "Cello, hi, hi!"

"Well—" Marcello abandons the book he'd been working on and leans over to fix her towel for her before it slips off completely. She doesn't even look like she's three years old, but Marcello respects Elena enough that he doesn't want to see her running around without clothes. For one thing, if she remembered it when she was older, she'd probably hit him. "You seem happy."

She nods and jumps a little in place. "Daddy played with me," she informs him happily. "And—and Edward—he says I can be a pirate!"

"Wow," Marcello says. "A real pirate?"

She nods. Then, in a generous tone, adds, "You can pirate too, Cello."

Marcello sighs and (although he knows it won't make any difference at all) shakes his head. "Elena," he says patiently. "I keep telling you, a cello is an instrument."

"And a Cello is you, too," she tells him, so firmly that Marcello just gives up. Besides, even when he visits an Elena that's closer to his own age (fifteen and clearly too old for nicknames like that), she _still_ calls him Cello. Marcello still doesn't like it. Elena crawls up onto Marcello's desk chair next to him, and looks at the book he's trying to read. "What does your book say, Cello?"

"Lots of things."

"What _kind_ of things?"

He smirks at her. "Big kid things."

"Cello! I'm a big kid!"

She's what, two? Three? Marcello shrugs. Young or not, she's still a visitor. No secrets from visitors, even little things. They're as close as any eight people can be, lies between them would just be insulting.

He sighs and shakes his head. "It's a history book," he says, propping her up a little so she can see the text. Not that she'll be able to read it.

"Who's he?" Elena asks, clearly confused.

"He who?"

They stare at each other, both totally lost. "History," Elena says again. Slowly. "Who's _he_?"

"Um…"

"His. Story!" Elena says. "Whose story?"

"Oh!" Marcello laughs and waves his arms in a kind of contradictory gesticulation. Elena, who is well used to his habit of dramatic arm flailing (even at this age), ducks obligingly. "History, Elena, not 'his story.' But ah… I suppose in this case it's Darim's story. See? This is about the time he lived in."

"Tell me?" Elena asks, looking up at Marcello's face. "You tell good stories, Cello."

He nods and obligingly starts retelling what he's read in the book. In reality it's an old, dry tome, one he'd found in a forgotten box in the big room Marcello's mother uses to store her many (many, _many_ ) books. Marcello does his best to make it interesting. Elena looks enthralled, so apparently something is working—she just sits there, dripping onto his lap and his chair, listening with interest until suddenly her visit is over and she vanishes.

Marcello thinks briefly about going back to his book, but Flavia interrupts before he has the chance. "Hey," she calls from the doorway. "Mom says dinner's ready, so—" she makes a face. "Why are you all wet?"

"What?" He glances down. "Oh." Right, Elena and her dripping wet towel. "No reason."

"Mom!" Flavia shouts. "Mom, Marcello's making a huge mess!"

He shouts at her and she shouts back, and then they're chasing each other down the stairs, pushing and shoving until their mother tells them to calm down and behave themselves. Flavia grumbles to herself, but Marcello grins. Just another normal day in the Auditore house.


	11. Chapter 11

Darim had been planning to spend the day working on his aim with a crossbow; it's his favorite technique, and one he's really  _ good _ at. His mother says he might even surpass his father at it someday, and Darim can imagine no higher praise. It should have been a good day, working on his best skill and generally enjoying himself. Even the weather is cooperating, and Darim is really feeling cheerful when he first wakes up.

Unfortunately, Malik has other plans. He'd caught Sef practicing his leap of faith off the top of the tower, and decided  _ both  _ brothers were to spend the day in the library as punishment, working on their languages. Malik has assigned three dozen paragraphs to be translated from Arabic into French, which means at least a whole morning wasted inside. It really isn't fair—Sef is thirteen now, definitely not at the age where he'll listen to his brother about anything, so Darim doesn't understand why he has to be kept inside all day as well.

But his parents are away from Masyaf, and Darim has never actually won an argument with Malik. So here he is, sitting at a table with his brother (as far away as he can physically get without sitting on the floor), with Malik watching the pair of them with sharp eyes. Which is bad enough, except that suddenly someone lunges at Darim from behind, sending him tumbling out of his chair and onto the floor.

"Ha!" Marcello crows. "Dead!"

Darim bites his lip and shoves his visitor away. Marcello is  _ not _ an assassin, and from what Darim has seen of him later in life, he never will be. But he's not an idiot (he's pretty sharp, actually, as much as he tries to hide it), and he's got enough visitors in the brotherhood to know exactly what it is. This 'haha you're dead' thing had started a few years ago, when Marcello started to get jealous that most of his friends were training to be assassins and he… wasn’t. He gets a kick out of jumping them when they're not paying attention, playing at the role he will never fill in reality. Opinions on this behaviour range from Elena's tolerant indulgence ( _ "He'll grow out of it eventually, Darim, this is just like that time when he was six and pretended he was a cat every time he visited" _ ) to Jacob's frustrated annoyance ( _ "I swear to God, I'm going to kill him if he does it again.” _ ). Darim typically falls more toward the tolerant side of the scale, but then he  _ typically  _ doesn't have Malik and Sef staring at him.

"Sorry," Darim says, after a pause that's far too long. "I, um… must have dozed off. Fell out of my seat."

Sef snickers at him, and Malik points silently back to the chair Marcello had pushed Darim out of. He ducks his head and bends determinedly over his work. After a minute, Marcello sits down on the table in front of Darim. Strikes a deliberately annoying pose. Sings a song. Darim keeps working, and Marcello heaves a sigh. "Come on, Darim," he urges. "I haven't visited you in over a month, now you're just going to sit here and be boring?"

Darim nods, trying to make the movement seem natural, and Marcello sighs. He inches his way across the table, and for a moment or two is actually silent as he studies Darim's work.

 

"You translated that wrong," Marcello says brightly, pointing to the line Darim has just written, with painstaking care. "You used the past tense of 'to write' instead of the present tense."

Darim scowls at him and scratches the sentence out. Then he writes,  _ I wasn't aware you spoke Arabic  _ or _ French  _ on the side of his parchment. Marcello twists his head around to read the message, then shrugs. "Mom's making me learn French," he says. Marcello's mother is a voracious reader, Darim knows, and insists her children be as well educated as possible. "And I always liked the way Arabic writing looks, so I decided to learn that too."

He says it absolutely casually, as if learning two completely unrelated languages at once is a simple task. But that's Marcello. It must be the universe's idea of a joke that he'd been born with a mind as sharp as the hidden blades he  _ so  _ badly wants to wear, and never will. And of course (Marcello chooses this moment to start whining for Darim to pay attention to him) he'd also apparently been born with the perpetual maturity of a three year old.

"Let me do that for you," Marcello says at last, pointing at Darim's work. "It'll be done faster, and then we can go do something fun." He nudges at Darim hopefully, almost forcing him to knock over a bottle of ink with his elbow. "Maybe you can show me how you're doing with the crossbow? I know how much you enjoy that."

It's not the best idea Marcello has ever had. It's less than perfectly honest for Darim to let Marcello do his work for him, and there's a pretty decent chance Malik will figure out  _ something  _ isn't right. Still, Marcello looks so hopeful that Darim nods and gives in.

Sure enough, when Darim has relinquished control of his body to Marcello, the work is finished far more quickly than it would have been if Darim was working alone. Marcello brings it to Malik, and gives the man a cocky grin (that doesn't fit at  _ all _ on Darim's face) when Malik grudgingly admits he's done well, and that he can go if he wants.

Marcello lets Darim have his body back in time for Darim to thank Malik, and then the two of them are hurrying out of the room, Marcello tugging at Darim's elbow to make him go faster. Darim lets him chatter on and on as they head out to the training ring, and even shows his visitor a few simple moves when they get there. After all, Marcello can be annoying, needy, whiny, and childish. But he's still one of Darim's visitors, and that makes him one of his closest friends. The extra bit of effort it takes to show Marcello a thing or two costs him nothing, and obviously makes Marcello's day. It's sort of the least he can do. 


	12. Chapter 12

Jenny usually likes when everyone's home to have dinner together, but today Haytham (six years old and whiny) is driving her crazy and she'd rather be anywhere but here. She's picking at her food and trying to think of an excuse to leave when something familiar starts to tingle in the back of her head. Jenny looks around, trying to make the motion as surreptitious as possible, and spots Matthew on the other side of the room.

Well at least he's not Marcello. The last time  _ he'd _ shown up, he'd managed to annoy Jenny so much that she'd actually shouted aloud at him. Luckily, Haytham had been the only one around, and he hadn't realized there was anything weird about Jenny's outburst. Unluckily, that was because he'd thought she was yelling at him, and had cried for an hour after. The incident had made Jenny more convinced than ever that she needed to keep her visitors hidden from… well, from everyone, and so she only smiles a little at Matthew in greeting.

He doesn't smile back. His expression is something between confusion and surprise, and he steps over to talk to Jenny. He stops next to her, so uncomfortably close that she can't help turning to look up at him. "You never told me your surname is Kenway," he tells her, and the words are sharp, an accusation, and she isn't expecting to hear it from him of all people. "Why didn't you ever  _ tell _ me?"

Her surname isn't Kenway. She's always preferred Scott, after her mother. Jenny gives Matthew a confused look, and he responds by crossing his arms and staring at her like he's just waiting for an answer. And this isn't like Matthew. Normally, he's almost unshakably calm, a welcome voice of reason in any visitors related drama. For him to look this upset now, and to try and have this conversation in front of other people, must mean that something has gone wrong.

"I'm not feeling well," Jenny says, turning to her father.

"Do you need—"

"It's a woman problem," Jenny says bluntly, because that subject always makes him give up at once. She stands up, murmuring a few polite words at Tessa when she offers to follow, and almost dashes from the room. As soon as she's upstairs and safely out of earshot, she turns to Matthew. "What's going on?" she demands. "What's wrong?"

"What's wrong is you told me your name is  _ Scott _ ," Matthew says. "Jennifer  _ Scott _ . But that's not true, is it?"

"It is," she says, confused.

"Your brother's name is Kenway!"

Jenny stares at him for a second, trying to puzzle out how that makes  _ any  _ kind of sense. "My father's a Kenway," she says at last. "But you remember, he was never around when I was younger. I use my mother's surname. Scott. What does  _ Haytham _ have to do with any of this?"

Matthew sits down, leaning against the wall, and after a moment Jenny sits down next to him. "I'm about to meet my father," Matthew mumbles, staring at the floor without looking at Jenny. "I've been looking for references to  _ Kenways  _ ever since my mother let slip that it was connected to my father, and I found this grave. Haytham Kenway." Jenny frowns but doesn't interrupt. "I've been looking after it, and a little while ago I ran into—well maybe you won't believe it, but I met Rory and Jeanne's mother. And after we talked for a while, she told me she could take me to my father."

"But that's great," Jenny says. "You've always wanted to meet him."

Matthew nods. He doesn't look excited. "So I went with her. I thought… well, she doesn't know me, but I've seen her plenty of times from visiting her kids. I was pretty sure I could trust her. And for a while everything was nice." For just a second, he smiles. "I knew where we were going before we got there, do you know what I mean? Just… the land, the places, it was all so familiar. I knew I was coming home. And then we got back to the house, and found out my father was out for the day. So I got a kind of tour of the house, and then suddenly you were there. You and Jacob and Rory and Jeanne."

"We get to meet?" Jenny asks. "Really? In  _ person _ ?"

"Yes," Matthew says. "And that's when I found out that my father is your nephew. All this time I've been looking for any sign of my family, while I was convinced my father was dead, you were living with him!" He frowns at Jenny. "Why didn't you  _ tell _ me?"

"Matthew." She gives him a look. "I don't even know what you're talking about. I haven't gotten that far yet, how am I supposed to tell you anything?"

He hesitates. While they do occasionally have visits from visitors that are older or younger (kids, for some reason, tend to show up a lot), most of the time their visitors are close to their own age. "Sorry," he says. "I guess… I don't know. I'm just really scared. What if something goes wrong with my father? What if he sends me away? What if—"

Jenny interrupts him with a hug. "Don't worry," she says. "I'll be there, right? Whatever happens, you won't have to face it alone." She feels confident in making the promise, even decades ahead of the fact. It's impossible to imagine any circumstance that would drive such a wedge between her and her visitors that she wouldn't want to be there for Matthew. Finding out that they're family only makes that conviction stronger.

"Yea," Matthew agrees. They sit in silence for a little while, until Haytham suddenly goes running past them, as fast as his legs will carry him, laughing all the way. He glances back at Jenny as he passes and (not paying attention to where he's going) runs smack into a wall.

"Jenny!" he whines. "The wall hit me!"

"Hit it back," she tells him. Haytham (still lying on his back like a flipped turtle) kicks petulantly at the wall before getting up and walking away.

Jenny nudges Matthew in the side. "That's your grandfather," she says, and somehow that starts them both laughing. Neither of them stops until Matthew's visit ends and Jenny is left laughing alone.


	13. Chapter 13

“Sit still,” Elena snaps at Marcello as soon as he arrives. “I need to draw you.”

“What? Why? And why are you in such a bad mood? Why—“

She throws a pencil at him, and it hits right above his left eyebrow. “Ow!”

“That didn't hurt, you big baby.”

He pouts (which probably doesn't help him look any less like a baby). “How did I annoy you already?” he demands. “I just got here!”

“It’s your dad’s birthday tomorrow,” she says. “I wanted to draw him a picture of you, but this is your third time visiting and you haven't managed to sit still for more than ten minutes at a time.”

“Well I haven't had those visits yet,” Marcello protests. “So clearly I'm not going to want to sit still in the future when I know I'm going to do it today. That would just be an unnecessary amount of sitting still.”

“I haven't seen any sign that you're actually going to sit still and let me draw you this time,” Elena says doubtfully.

“I haven't moved!”

“Your face moves when you talk.”

“Not a  _ lot.” _

“Yes a lot.”

“That's not fair! You never said I had to be quiet. I don't want to sit still now.” He gets up (ignoring Elena’s long suffering sigh) and looks down at her notebook. So far she's managed to get the general shape of his head, and also written a rude word in the corner with an arrow pointing at him.

He picks up a pencil and writes a similarly rude reply underneath. It's sort of lengthy, so he's still writing when the door opens and—oh. It's his dad.

Elena sort of waves at Ezio, who peeks over her shoulder to see what she's working on. He frowns and points at what Marcello's just finished writing. "You are definitely not supposed to know those words," he says. "Where did you learn them?"

"I have no idea what they mean," Elena protests. "Cello wrote that."

"Elena," Marcello protests. " _ Please  _ stop calling me—"

"Is he still here?" Ezio asks.

Elena points, and Ezio turns to glare at Marcello. He squirms uncomfortably—it's been a long time since he's seen his father mad at him. "You should know better than that," he says sternly.

"It's not like I'm  _ corrupting _ Elena or anything!" Marcello protests. "We all learned worse from visiting Jacob when we were kids!" Jacob's not too bad about swearing, but she does tend to hang out on ships, and the expression is 'swear like a sailor' for a reason.

"He says he's not corrupting me," Elena says helpfully, when Ezio doesn't respond.

"That's not the point," Ezio says.

"She wrote that other thing first!" Marcello says.

Elena sticks out her tongue at him and doesn't repeat this part. Marcello sticks his out as well. "Can you tell him to sit still?" she asks instead. "I'm trying to finish something."

Ezio nods and Marcello sighs. "Fine," he grumbles.

"I think he's going to cooperate now," Elena says, and Ezio's glare relaxes a bit.

He lingers for a second, then says, "I miss you" to the empty air just next to Marcello.

"Miss you too, dad," Marcello says. Elena passes this on to Ezio, and then Ezio leaves Elena and Marcello to get on with what they're doing. It's still a struggle after that for Marcello to sit still, but he manages. When she's done with the picture, Marcello scoots over to look at the finished product. "It looks good," he says. "Do you think dad will like it, though?"

"Yea," Elena says. "Yea, of course he will. He really misses you, Cello. I heard him tell Edward the other day that he wished he could have seen you grow up."

"I'm thirteen," Marcello says. "It's not exactly grown up."

"Close enough. And I haven't seen you as an adult in like a year and a half, so…" she shrugs, and they both look at the drawing again. Marcello sighs, and Elena pats him comfortingly on the shoulder.

"Tell him happy birthday from me?"

"Course I will."


	14. Chapter 14

Rory doesn't like being sick. Especially not when he's throwing up every few minutes, unable to keep anything down, not even water. It's his seventh birthday, and he's only going to get one of those—it's not fair that he has to spend it in bed.

His mom had been with him earlier, holding a bucket for him to throw up into and wiping his face with a wet cloth. That had been nice, but then Tomas started chasing the cat around with his little wooden sword, and she'd had to go downstairs to save him (Rory isn't sure if Tomas or the cat is in more danger—Tomas is bigger, but the cat has claws). Now he's all by himself, and sad, and—

"You smell bad."

And great. Jeanne's here.

"Go away," he grumbles, trying not to throw up again.

"Yea, right." She shoves his legs aside and sits next to him on the bed.

"I'll get you sick too."

"Yea, well." She shrugs. "Figured I'd come see if I could help."

"You can help by going away." He kicks at her but he's weak as a kitten and she just sticks her tongue out at him. "I don't want you making fun of me."

"I'm not," she says. She sounds surprised. "I'm your sister.  _ And  _ your visitor. I gotta help, right?"

"Really?"

"Sure."

He smiles a little bit, but tries not to let her see. "You can hold the bucket."

"Ew! No  _ way _ . Hold your own gross bucket."

" _ You're  _ the gross one!"

"You're throwing up!"

"Yea, but you're a  _ girl _ ."

When their mom comes back a few minutes later, Rory still feels sick and disgusting, but now he's laughing too.


	15. Chapter 15

That first night is the hardest. Jenny has just seen her father killed, and she can't get the sight of him out of her head. His body had still been warm when she'd been taken away, and the expression of horrified surprise on his face will no doubt haunt her nightmares for years. She tries to remind herself that he's fine, he's just… far away, hundreds of years in the future, impossibly out of her reach.

It doesn't really help.

They keep her in darkness all the time, with a cloth around her eyes. When they stop for the night, they take the cloth off but put Jenny into a room so dark she can't see her hand in front of her face. She's too old to be afraid of the dark, but Jenny is still shaking when she huddles up in a corner and wraps her arms around her legs.

This is terrifying. It's awful, it's _horrible_ , and she still doesn't know what these people want from her. Maybe they're going to kill her. Jenny doesn't want to die.

"Jenny?"

"Ja—Jacob…" she hasn't cried yet, but she does now, at the sound of her sister's voice. Jenny reaches out blindly, and a moment later she feels Jacob's hands around hers. She pulls Jacob down to sit next to her. Jenny has never been so grateful for the feel of her sister at her side, strong as a rock and silently nonjudgmental as Jenny cries into her shoulder.

"Is today… I mean… today's the day father died?" Jacob asks after a while.  

“Yes.” 

“So this is your first day of… Of being a prisoner?”

"You knew about that?" Jenny asks. "You _knew_?"

Jacob shifts uncomfortably. "We all knew," she says after a pause. "But it didn't seem—we thought you would be happier without knowing."

"Oh."

"It's just—this is going to be… from what I've seen, you… well." Jacob is unusually flustered, stuttering and stopping every few words. Eventually, however, she manages to gather herself and go on. "This is going to ruin enough of your life," she says. "We didn't want that shadow hanging over you."

"How much of my life?" Jenny asks.

"Jenn, don't…"

"How _much_ , Jacob?"

A short pause. "I don't know," Jacob admits. "I haven't seen you after this yet."

"So this might be it," Jenny says softly. "I could die a captive. I—" she hears footsteps suddenly, and tenses against Jacob.

"It's alright," Jacob says, rubbing her back gently. "It's Darim."

"Oh. Good." She can't hold onto the anger over her visitors keeping this a secret. They might be the only friendly faces she sees for the rest of her life. She strains to see anything at all through the darkness of the room around them, but—nothing. Jacob must be using eagle vision, but Jenny hasn't been blessed with that particular gift. Just another thing she hadn't gotten from her father that would have helped earlier. If she'd been able to see, if she'd been trained to use a sword… maybe she wouldn't be facing the future she is.

"Are you alright, Jenny?" Darim asks, sitting cross legged in front of her. Jenny can feel his knee on hers, she can hear the genuine concern in his voice. Both are a comfort.

"No," she says. "I want to go home."

Someone puts their arm around her shoulder, and she recognizes Marcello's voice when he says, "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault."

"I know. But I'm still sorry."

She's never heard him so sad and serious.

"Thanks," Jenny whispers.

 _"Oh,"_ someone says. Elena. She crowds in close to Darim, and puts one hand on Jenny's leg. "Jenny…"

Elena's been through this. She'd been a captive of the templars for the first two years of her life. "What's it like?" Jenny asks. "How bad is it?"

"It's…"

"Please don't lie to make me feel better."

"It's awful," Elena tells her. "There are days you're so lonely it physically hurts. That's the worst part. And knowing that no one cares what happens to you."

"No one but all of you though," Jenny says. "Right?"

"Of course," Elena says. "Visitors make everything better."

Suddenly there is shouting in the room, and Jenny tenses up with the expectation that her captors are coming back.

"Rory," Darim says. "Jeanne, _really_. Now?"

"What's going on?" Rory asks loudly. "Ow! Don't hit me, Jeanne!"

"I stepped on your foot, and it was an accident!"

"Jeanne," Jacob says. "Please. Jenny really needs us."

There's a moment or two of frantic scuffling from the siblings, and then Jeanne slides into place next to Jacob, a warm presence at Jenny's side, and Rory kneels next to Darim, almost visible as a dim shadow in front of her. When Matthew arrives a moment or two later, and puts his hand on Jenny's shoulder without saying a word, Jenny isn't crying anymore. There's something empty and cold and dark growing inside her, a creeping fear of what the future will hold, and she's not entirely sure that her visitors can fill it.

But they help. All seven of them surround her, solid and warm and real (for all that they're far away, already dead or not yet born). They don't say anything, they just sit there in silence and support her in the way she needs most at the moment. They're still there when she drifts off to sleep, leaning against them.

Sometime later in the night, the last visitor leaves and Jenny—suddenly alone and unsupported—falls to the ground. Her head hits the rough, cold ground, and Jenny groans. So this is it. This is her life.

She wonders if it wouldn't have been better if she'd been killed with her father.


	16. Chapter 16

Jacob doesn't really have a bed on the train. There is one, but he'd given it to Evie. Partly because she'd probably just take it and partly because he's half hoping she'll invite Greenie in and get over her weird fixation on him.

That just leaves him with the narrow couch farther back, and while he's very gradually learning how to not fall off it in the middle of the night, there really isn't room there to share. Every night, assuming Jacob makes it back to the train in the first place, he'll stretch out on the couch and doze off, letting the train shake him to sleep like a babe in its cradle.

Except for _this_ night, because _this_ is the night when Jacob wakes up with another man's feet on him. He shifts onto his side and pokes at the feet—their owner is lying on the floor, fast asleep, with just his feet propped up on Jacob. It's not a particularly threatening position, and the man himself doesn't seem particularly threatening, but he is wearing a hidden blade so he's probably an assassin. Which isn't _bad_ , but it is slightly confusing. In Jacob's experience, assassins are uptight and boring, like his father and his sister. They don't just prop up their legs on each other and fall asleep.

Also, Jacob is not a bed.

He's tired and doesn't want to get up, so he just slaps at the man's feet and mutters at him to get off.

This has absolutely no effect on the sleeping man, and Jacob is _really_ tired and he's sure whatever the explanation for this might be, it can wait until morning. Jacob closes his eyes, then opens them again and studies the man's boots contemplatively. They're kind of uncomfortably digging into his stomach, and now that he's thinking about them, it's going to be hard to get back to sleep. He experimentally unlaces the closer boot and tugs it off—the man doesn't even stir, so Jacob chucks it away and goes for the other boot.

He tries to sleep a second time, and immediately notices the _smell_. Feet, of course, never exactly smell great, but these are really horrible. There's absolutely no way Jacob is going to be able to sleep with the stench of those _feet_ slowly wafting their way up to him.

Jacob gives a long, sad sigh of defeat and slides sideways off the couch to join the man on the floor. It's not all that comfortable, but at least it smells better. He drifts off almost at once, and even when the man rolls over without waking and hugs him, Jacob just doesn't have the energy to protest.

After that, he actually sleeps pretty well.

He wakes up to Evie leaning over him, shaking him awake and looking disapproving. Well, that's nothing new.

"Did you bring someone home last night?" she asks.

"What?" He's still being hugged, and the man has also added nuzzling to his repertoire. His face is buried in Jacob's shoulder and he keeps rubbing it with his nose. It doesn't feel as bad as Jacob would have expected. "Oh, no. He just showed up and then his feet smelled."

"So you ended up…?" she trails off, confused.

Jacob groans and sits up, shaking off his unexpected guest. This finally seems to be enough to wake him, because he slides off Jacob with a squawk.

"Are you one of _them_?" Evie demands.

"You know who I am," Jacob protests.

Evie waves him off impatiently. "Not _you_ , Jacob."

"It's okay," the stranger says, sitting up and holding his arms out dramatically. "My name’s Edward, and I have an explanation."

Jacob and Evie both look expectantly at him, and the silence between the three of them stretches out just a beat too long.

“And what _is_ that explanation?” Evie asks, in what Jacob recognizes as a very dangerous tone.

“Hang on,” Edward grumbles. “I'm trying to remember where I put my notecards.”

“What?”

Edward makes a little triumphant noise and pulls a handful of cards out of a pocket. They look grubby and bent, as if he's been carrying them around for a while. “We weren't sure would see next, from your point of view,” he tells Evie. “And they made me write it down in case it was me.”

“Who are they?” Jacob resettles himself on the couch, grinning. He has no idea what's going on here, but Edward is doing a fantastic job of irritating Evie, so he can't be all bad.

"Look!" Edward says, ignoring the question completely. “They have pictures!”

Jacob doubles over laughing and Evie's glare gets more dangerous. “That's a penis,” she says.

 

“Yea, well.” Edward glances at the card then flips it over to show the writing on the back. “Ezio told me to try not to be a dick.”

He clears his throat and flips to the next card. “Okay, so first of all visitors. There used to be eight of us, but I guess now there's you guys and maybe some more people?” He passes Jacob a card that not so helpfully shows eight people.

 

“Okay,” Evie says. "And?"

"And so there were eight of us, like I said," Edward explains. "And we would sometimes just show up in each other's lives. No one else could see us, and there were all kinds of weird rules but I think it usually worked out pretty well." He passes Jacob a card covered in little pictures of those same people doing various things together.

 

"And so we all got used to each other," Edward goes on. "And all of a sudden, here comes Evie Frye."

"What about me?" Evie asks, flinching slightly at the sound of her name.

"There was some accident with a piece of Eden," Edward says (the next card has what looks like an explosion on it). "And we all got one visit with you, which ended when you two fought Starrick over the shroud."

"That didn't really happen!" Jacob protests.

" _None_ of this really happened," Evie says.

"Hang on," Edward says. "I'm just following the cards, okay? If it was up to me we'd have skipped to the good parts already but I _know_ Haytham's going to ask me if I used the cards or not."

Evie sighs. "Fine," she says. "What's the shroud, then, a piece of Eden?"

"It heals people," Edward says, flapping his hand vaguely. "But, er—it definitely does not bring people back from the dead. I mean, it does, but it takes a really big price. See, after we all died—"

"You all _died_?" Jacob asks, still trying to hide his smile. This man is either a drunkard or mad, but either way his story is turning out to be exactly as entertaining as Jacob had hoped 

"Oh, yea, forgot that card." Edward throws another one at Jacob, who snorts at the accompanying illustration of a bunch of dead people with x's for eyes. "We all died and went to the future so it's fine now."

"Oh," Jacob says, around his laughter.

But after we died, we had this friend that was living in this little robot—" he shakes his head. "I mean… it's like this little flying machine thing." He shows them another card. "Anyway he was dead too and we decided to use the shroud to bring him back to life. It worked, but…" he droops. "The shroud wanted payment, and we agreed. We just didn't know it would take you, Evie. Or your memories, anyway. Everything that happened to you while we were your visitors."

 

"There's nothing wrong with me," Evie says, just a shade too quickly. Jacob looks over at her, the smile dying on his face. She looks like she's taking this a lot more seriously than he is (which—well, no surprise there), like she's actually considering that this might be true.

"I didn't say there was anything wrong with you," Edward corrects, gently. "Just that you're missing some memories."

"I'm _not_ ," she insists. Quietly. Edward gives her a more sympathetic look than he has seemed capable of so far.

“How would you know?” he asks quietly, almost kindly. “How do you remember something you've forgotten?"

"I just would," Evie says, in the least certain voice Jacob has ever heard her speak with. He frowns and stands up. Suddenly, this isn't funny anymore.

"Leave her alone," he says. "If any of what you says is real—even if it _is_ , it doesn't matter, okay? Evie doesn't have to remember if she doesn't want to. You're happy, aren't you Evie?"

"Not at this precise moment," she says, glaring daggers at Edward. "But in _general_ , yes. I don't need whatever memories you visitors claim I used to have!"

"But—" Edward looks between them, confused, but obviously doesn't see any weakness. Of course he doesn't. As much as he and Evie might argue, Jacob knows there's no one stronger than them when they're together. "You were happy _before,_ too. A lot happier than you look now. You were—"

"I don't want to know!" Evie bursts out. "Stop telling me things that I haven't lived yet! Even if these things happened, they're gone! They don't count, so just let me live my life!"

Edward bows his head. "If that's what you want, Evie," he says quietly. "But I hope we can still be friends. We're visitors now, and maybe that doesn't mean much to you yet, but visitors _should_ be friends."

"I'll think about it," Evie says coldly, and she hurries away.

Jacob glances uneasily at Edward, and drops his voice. "Did all that really happen?" he asks. "She really had this whole life that she forgot?"

Edward nods, and Jacob frowns. Normally, he would have written this off as a joke, but Evie had seemed so shaken by Edward's story.

And then there's Henry.

"Do you know Henry Green?" he asks. "Do you know who he was to Evie?"

"The last I heard, she told Aveline they were to be married." He pauses. "Evie and Henry, I mean. Not Evie and Aveline."

Married. Jacob's sister, _married_. And she doesn't remember…

Well at least that explains why she can't get him out of her head.


	17. Chapter 17

****"Come to tell me I'm living my life wrong?" Evie calls to the man that has just appeared out of thin air beside her. He's appeared just as she's leaping from one roof to another, and he just barely manages to catch the edge of the next building when he lands. One arm is missing below the elbow, but he seems used to climbing with one hand, and adjusts at once. He makes a little noise as all the air is shoved out of his lungs, but Evie doesn't slow down. She's not in the mood to be lectured yet again on how she needs to do this, that, and the other thing (how she needs to fall in love with Henry).

"Hold on!" the new visitor calls after her, and Evie speeds up, dragging him behind her. It is so freeing, after weeks of visits, to finally have some power over one of them. She ignores this new visitor's shouts, until after several minutes he manages to catch up to her. "Please," he says. "Please, stop!"

He doesn't make a move to grab her, and he had said please. When Evie falters and looks back at him, the expression on his face is like a hopeful puppy. Evie slows to a stop.

"Thanks," the man says, breathing hard. "You're fast—I mean, _really_ fast."

"I know," Evie says. Then, because his words had sounded like a genuine compliment, she adds, "Thank you."

"Have we met, from your point of view?" he asks. "Because—I'll be honest, I have no clue what's going on." He flashes her a bright, nervous smile and holds out a hand. "I'm Desmond Miles."

"Evie Frye," she answers. "You really don't know me? I thought all you visitors knew more about me than I do."

"I'd heard there was some… tension," Desmond says. "But—I mean, we did meet before, but I honestly don't remember it. I don't know if anyone's told you, but I was kind of going crazy for a while. When we first met, I barely knew my own name. I'd really like to start over, if that's alright."

"It's more than alright," Evie says warmly, the words tumbling over each other to escape her. Jacob is making friends with their visitors, going on wild adventures that he seems to find incredibly amusing. Evie, on the other hand, is still smarting from their continued insistence that they know what she's supposed to do with her own life. Whatever happened to _everything is permitted_?

"Right," Desmond says. They start moving again, across the rooftops toward Evie's target. "So—what year is this? What are you doing?"

Evie starts to tell him, but then he interrupts with a question, and when she answers that he almost trips over himself to add his own opinion. Their conversation picks up, and they stop on a rooftop overlooking a wide, busy street. There might as well be nobody else around, though, Evie is so fixed on this conversation. The sounds of the horses and the carts they pull fade until Evie hardly notices them. Desmond's perspective on the assassins is fascinating, colored by firsthand experiences in other centuries, _as other people_. He doesn't seem entirely comfortable with these memories, but his hesitation is a welcome change from Jacob. And from Edward, and Ezio—from all her visitors, really, who keep forcing her into a life that doesn't fit.

Near the end of his visit, Desmond reaches out abruptly to grasp Evie's arm. "I'm sorry," he says.

"For what?" Evie asks. By now they're sitting side by side in the shadow of a chimney, talking freely and easily.

"For my—for our visitors," Desmond says. "I know they're making things hard for you. I don't exactly know what happened in your life before that they want to happen again. But I know how stubborn they can be when they set their minds to it, and—"

"Don't worry about it," Evie interrupts. "You're not like them. You are—" she flushes and looks down at the street. "You've been very nice, Desmond. Thank you."

He smiles at her again and disappears. Evie gets to her feet and presse onward, buoyed by the knowledge that she has one visitor at least who is more interested in being friends with the person she is now than the person she had once been in a world that no longer exists.

That night, for the first time since coming to London, Evie is able to write in her journal without mentioning Henry's name once.

-//-

"What's that look?" Shaun asks Desmond.

"What look?"

Shaun makes a long suffering noise and swivels his chair so that he's facing Desmond instead of his computers. They're supposed to be catching up on information other assassins have provided on Abstergo's movements, but Desmond feels like his mind is still in the 1800s with Evie. He can't stop smiling.

"You look like you just met a girl," Shaun says. When Desmond's face heats up and his mouth curves into a smile, Shaun splutters at him. " _Did_ you meet a girl?" he demands. "Did you just go on a visit and meet a girl?"

"Maybe," Desmond admits.

Shaun sighs, and turns his attention resolutely back to his computer. For a minute or two he sits there in silence, ignoring Desmond, then he gives in and glances back at him. "I'm glad to hear it," he says at last. "I know Lucy gave you Elena, but I was starting to think that meant you were never going to let yourself move past her. She's been dead for three years, Desmond. Might as well move on."

"Thanks," Desmond says. "I didn't think you cared."

"We're friends, aren't we?" Shaun says.

"Are we?" Desmond laughs.

Shaun sticks a semi-threatening finger in Desmond's face. "Don't make me say it again," he says. "And I'll never admit it with anyone else around. But it's good that you're looking at other women."

Desmond feels his flush creeping its way down his face to his neck. He's still smiling.

And then Shaun, because he's Shaun, adds "Even if I assume she's been dead for centuries and you'll never be able to meet in person."

Desmond makes a rude noise as Shaun turns back to the reports they're still not done reading, but he's happy for the rest of the evening.


	18. Chapter 18

"So this is London in your time," Evie says softly, looking out over the vast expanse of the city laid out below herself and Desmond. He's here on a mission, although Evie doesn't know all the details. She _does_ know that this is the first time Desmond's been away from his daughter since they were reunited, and she knows this because Desmond's told her (twice) and because he's so sweetly nervous about the distance between the two of them. With Desmond's target still well-guarded and unreachable for now, Evie had tried to distract him by asking him to take her up high, so she could see the city she'd once known so well.

It's different now. Brighter. Bigger. Taller.

The building Desmond has chosen to climb to the top of is home to a rooftop garden. It's nice, and Evie wonders if he'd have taken Jacob to the same place, or if he'd chosen it just for her. The idea is strangely thrilling, just as… well, just as a lot of the things about Desmond are strangely thrilling. He is from the future—well, most of her visitors are. But he's a native to the twenty first century, and therefore a mystery to her in a way the others never quite manage to be. Evie has always liked a puzzle.

But she can't quite say that's the only reason she likes Desmond. He is bright, happy even. She knows from some of their other visitors that most of his life so far has been one long struggle, pain after pain. It's only recently that he's found a family and a home, but Evie thinks he burns all the brighter for it, like his losses make him treasure the good things he's found.

And she thinks she might just be one of those good things.

"I've never been here before," Desmond says, settling himself down on the roof. He studies London with the same interest that Evie feels. "It really is different, isn't it?"

Evie nods, and then sits hesitantly beside him, keeping some space between the two of them. "Why didn't you let one of the others come?" she asks. "It seems like whatever your mission here is, it would have been easier for someone that already knows London."

He shrugs, and doesn't quite look at her. But he does smile. "I kind of hoped you would show up," he admits. "I wanted to see it with you."

Something warm burns in Evie's chest, and a smile creeps its way along her face. She doesn't even try to stop it. "I'm—thank you," she says. "It's… this is amazing. There's less than a hundred and fifty years between us, but look how much London has changed."

"Not all of it," Desmond says. "Look—" and he leans forward, gesturing around them to the few familiar landmarks that remain. Evie follows his lead, craning forward as well, and for a few minutes they are distracted by the city, by the ceaseless movement of it, the changes and the things that are the same. It is simultaneously impossible to believe this is the same city, and impossible to believe that it is _not_. Evie is caught up in a heady sort of feeling, and for possibly the first time she feels truly lucky to be a visitor. She's seeing history and the future both at once, and she is part of them both—

Evie does not quite intend to kiss Desmond, she simply turns sideways and finds him there, close beside her, and he's smiling in a way that makes her think he wouldn't mind. And when she kisses him, the eagerness that he responds makes Evie's heart _race_. He's kissing her like there is no other woman in the world, or at least no other woman worth thinking about. He's kissing her like—like this is not his first time.

She leans back a little, not far—she is close enough that she can still smell him, a crisp, clean smell she can't quite name. His soap, maybe, but it isn't quite like anything men use in Evie's time. She likes it. She likes _him._ "Have you done this before?" she asked. "Have you kissed me?"

"I—" he grins at her like he thinks she's joking, then abruptly stops. "Was that… I mean, was this our first kiss, from your point of view?"

She nods, and Desmond flushes bright red. "Wasn't it for you?" she asks, and she catches herself hoping that he will say no—that there will be more of this in her future. But she's _afraid_ , suddenly, she's thinking of Henry. Henry, who is maybe not so different from Desmond in some ways but still so utterly unmistakable. She has nothing but mixed up, confused feelings for him, all compounded by her visitors' insistence that she _marry_ him. Marry him! Their stubborn insistence is as much reason as Evie needs to stay away from him, and here is Desmond, only half a breath away. He has never mentioned Henry to her, Evie isn't even sure he knows who Henry is—but she's suddenly afraid that he'll pull away and tell her that she's meant for someone else.

"No," Desmond says quietly. "It wasn't my first, and I… I really hope it won't be my last."

Evie beams, and kisses him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I never wanted to ship this, but now you will have to pry these two from MY COLD DEAD HANDS
> 
> ...now I just need to figure out how to ship Desmond/Evie and Henry/Evie simultaneously. I am very confused.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Friendly reminder that B-Team were having visits as teenagers.
> 
> And teenagers mean hormones.

Matthew shows up at about seven in the morning, while Elena is falling asleep on a school bus. The school she's at now takes the junior class to the state capitol every spring, and Elena hadn't seen any reason not to go.

She does now, because it's seven in the morning and she would rather be asleep in her own bed than crammed into a school bus with a couple dozen classmates. Her eyes feel like they're glued shut, and her limbs are heavy. Around her, everyone else is grumbling and complaining too, which really only makes everything worse.

Nobody wants to sit next to her, because she's the new kid (again), so Elena is surprised when she feels the seat next to her dip slightly, and then the weight of someone leaning against her.

"Hmm?" she mumbles, without opening her eyes.

"Hey, 'Lena," Matthew mutters, and Elena smiles a little. He sounds as tired as she is, and… well, honestly, she's just glad he's here.

"Hey, Matty," she says.

"I was sleeping," he complains.

"I wish I was sleeping," Elena sighs. For a little while they're quiet, dozing off together as the bus rumbles its way toward the highway, hitting every bump and pothole on the way.

After a while, though, Matthew shakes Elena awake. "Hey," he says. "You were sleeping on me."

"Oh," Elena says. She rubs at her face and tries to make her brain work. "Is that not okay?" she asks. Now that she's sort of starting to wake up, she realizes he's right—she's slipped sideways onto him, and Matthew's sort of holding onto her, holding her up. It's really nice, honestly.

Matthew pauses. "It's… I like you. I mean, I like—I like holding you, I…" he trails off, and Elena doesn't have to look at him to know he must be blushing.

But she suddenly feels not at all tired, she feels wide awake and nervous. Her heart is pounding, and she's horribly aware that this conversation could either end really well, or just… mess everything up forever. But she has to at least try, doesn't she.

"Matty?" she asks. "Do you really like me?"

He squeezes a little more tightly. "Of course I do," he says.

"Not like a visitor," Elena says quickly. "Like… you know."

"No," Matthew says, and now Elena is blushing too. She really doesn't want to have to explain this…

"Do you _like_ me, like me?" she asks.

"…what?"

"Do you—" she sits up with a noise of frustration, and kisses him. For a second he's too stunned to respond at all, and then his hold on her gets tighter, like he can't or won't let her go. When she runs out of breath, Elena looks up at him and asks, "Do you like me like that?"

His first response is a smile and a kind of strangled noise that implies he's not quite ready for actual words yet. Then he nods at her, and smiles. He clears his throat once or twice, trying to talk, and finally manages it. "Yea," he says in a raspy voice. "Yea, I definitely like you like that."

"Good," Elena says. Her heartbeat is slowing down, calming—she feels suddenly safe, and happy, and… _God_ , it's Matthew. He's her visitor, of course, but even beyond that he's always been…

He's special.

"Do you?" Matthew asks.

"Do I what?"

"Like me," Matthew says. "Like that?"

Elena nods, and laughs a little. "Yes," she says. "Yes, that would be why I kissed you in the first place."

"Right—" he laughs too, and flushes. "I guess that makes sense."

"Yea," she agrees.

"So do you want to kiss me again?"

She wants to kiss him all the way to the capitol, and that's exactly what they do—the only reason they stop is that Matthew's visit ends, and Elena is suddenly left all alone and very aware of the weird looks she's getting from the people around her. So what? They've just seen her apparently making out with herself, but it's not like they'll be around for much longer. All too soon, Elena will be on to a new school, and she'll never have to see these people.

Matthew, on the other hand, will be her visitor for the rest of her life.

The entire rest of the day, even with Matthew gone, Elena feels like she's walking around on air. She feels airy and weightless, buoyed up by the reassurance that _yes_ , the boy she likes actually likes her, too.

She doesn't come crashing back down to Earth until the trip is over—although Elena has absolutely no memory of where they go or what they do, she's so consumed with thoughts of Matthew. And then she sees Connor's come to pick her up (her dad's not… the _greatest_ driver, especially not one handed), and realizes that eventually she's going to have to tell him what happened.

And then she realizes that she's going to have to tell _her_ dad, too.

Sometimes visiting just makes things way more complicated than they have to be.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is for all the people that commented on the last couple chapters about how ridiculous these ships are.
> 
> PREPARE YOURSELVES
> 
> (JK, this is still not the most ridiculous unpublished ship in this verse)
> 
> Also, I'm not sure if this needs clarifying based on who is visiting whom in this chapter (and also... pronouns), but this is Jacob Kidd, not Frye. We really need a better way of differentiating.

"Oh," Jeanne says. "It's  _ you _ ."

She doesn't want to talk to Jacob right now. She doesn't want to talk to  _ any _ assassin at the moment, really. She's just so… so  _ sick _ of them treating her like she's something diseased, just because she's a templar. She's an adult, twenty years old and mature enough to know her own mind. She believes in the templar cause the way her father's taught it to her, and she wants to be able to fight for what she believes.

Why can't they just let her get on with it?

It's easier to take from strangers. Random assassins she meets on her missions are alright. They're strangers, they're the enemy and it's kill or be killed with them. But there are her visitors, half of them assassins themselves (or desperately  _ wanting _ to be assassins, in Marcello's case). And her family..! Her mother is alright. She'd married a templar, after all, she can't exactly complain about the side her daughter chooses. But Rory is absolutely insufferable.

Rory. He's her brother, and a visitor on top of it, so there's never a moment's peace from his incessant holier-than-thou attitude. He treats her like dirt, like him being an assassin and her being a templar makes him superior to her in every imaginable way. It's killing Jeanne, and her father just keeps telling her to be patient, that Rory will come around eventually. He's generally right about most things, but Jeanne is old enough now to know he's not infallible. And he's certainly wrong about this.

Sometimes, Jeanne thinks it's not a coincidence that you can't spell assassin without  _ ass _ , because Rory's the biggest pain in hers that she's ever met.

"Hey!"

They're on the deck of a ship—Jeanne can't remember which one, and Jacob keeps changing anyway—but either way, it's full of sailors, and some of them give Jacob strange looks for shouting at nothing. Jacob scowls at the closest one and grabs for Jeanne's hand. "Hey," she says again, more softly this time so that no one will hear. "Are you visiting out of order? What did I do?"

"Nothing," Jeanne mutters. She hasn't seen Jacob in a couple of months, and while she's intensely dedicated to the assassins, she's nowhere near as obnoxious as Rory. "I'm just sick of assassins right now. Sorry. It's not personal."

"What happened?" Jacob asks.

Jeanne slumps a little, and Jacob guides her into an out of the way spot where none of the other sailors will hear them talking. They sit down next to a crate of… of… well, frankly Jeanne has no idea what they are. Some kind of ship thing. Tomas would know, he's always loved ships, but Jeanne is prone to seasickness and has always tried to avoid them. Still, the smell of supplies here reminds her unavoidably of childhood afternoons on the  _ Morrigan,  _ just her and her father, and she feels herself starting to relax. She tells Jacob everything, about the way her brother makes her feel, about the way she always feels like the villain when she's around assassins, how she's so sick of being treated like the bad guy for doing what she thinks is  _ right _ .

Jacob listens quietly, although halfway through she wraps her arm around Jeanne, rubbing her shoulder gently and offering comfort that is surprisingly easy to take. "If it helps," she says quietly. "I don't think there's anything wrong with you being a templar."

"Yea," Jeanne mutters. "Right. Isn't that the first thing they teach you when you start training to be an assassin? All templars are evil, don't trust them, blah blah whatever?"

"The first thing they teach is the creed," Jacob corrects. "And nothing in that says I have to abandon my friend because she's on the other side." Jeanne nods, unexpectedly reassured to hear this from Jacob in particular. She catches herself leaning a little farther into Jacob, and Jacob doesn't make any protest. "If anything," Jacob goes on. "I think it's that brother of yours messing with your mind.  _ He's  _ being a dick about this, and he's convinced you all assassins feel the same way. And Jeanne, we don't. I can't speak for everyone, but our visitors trust you. Maybe not your brother, but I've never heard Darim or Marcello or Matthew or Elena complain about you. They're all assassins too. And I…" she seems to hesitate just a beat too long. "I know I'd give up being an assassin in an instant if it was a choice between the brotherhood and you."

"Thank you," Jeanne says softly. "That's… a lot. You would do that for me, really?"

"Don't get me wrong," Jacob says quickly. "I hope it never comes to that. But yes. I would choose you. Jeanne, I—I hope you know how special you are to me."

"Of course," Jeanne says. "We've known each other our entire lives. We're visitors."

"Well, yes." Jacob seems uncharacteristically nervous. "But you're special for more than just that. You're brave enough to go against your mother and your brother, and  _ most  _ of your visitors. You're kind, and you care about the people around you. You're… Jeanne, you…" she flushes, and fiddles nervously with the fraying fringe of her shirt. "Jeanne, I don't have the words to describe you."

And this is when Jeanne realizes that somehow, she has gotten far closer to Jacob than she'd originally meant to. Their faces are only inches apart, and Jacob's arms are warm and good around Jeanne's shoulders. She feels safe here, in the arms of her friend, and at the same time there's something else. Something new, or at least newly noticed. Something like butterflies in her stomach, nervous and excited and all tied up with the sudden pounding of her heart that's telling her  _ you know exactly what you want _ .

And then there's the feeling of her mouth on Jacob's. Oh.  _ Oh. _ Somehow, it's completely surprising and the perfect response to Jacob's confession, all mixed up together. Jeanne is hyper-aware of the salty-sweet smell of Jacob's tanned and freckled face, the sound of waves against the ship, the sun shining down on her so strongly it feels like a physical weight.

"Jeanne…" Jacob pulls back, just an inch or two. They are still so close that Jacob's face takes up Jeanne's entire field of vision, and Jeanne can feel Jacob's breath tickling her nose when she speaks. "Are you sure?"

"No," Jeanne says. "Not yet." And she smiles, something that would have seemed impossible at the start of this visit. "Maybe I need another try to make up my mind."

And the second kiss is even better than the first.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place at the same time as chapter 18

Edward is working hard at distracting Haytham from his work when all of a sudden he just stops what he's doing (a handstand in one corner of their room), tumbles to the ground, and lays there.

"What is it now?" Haytham asks, half concerned that something's really wrong and half convinced his father is just trying a new way of attracting attention.

"You'll never believe this," Edward says, and his flat tone of surprise makes Haytham think that Edward doesn't quite believe it himself. Whatever it is. "But I just had a visit where I caught Desmond having sex."

"No you didn't," Haytham says dismissively. "That only happens the other way around."

"I _did_ ," Edward insists.

"You can't have," Haytham says again. "We haven't visited among ourselves since we all died, remember?" So far, the eight of them have been able to visit the new visitors, and the new visitors can visit them _and_ each other, but the eight original members of A-Team simply don't. Haytham can't pretend it's not sort of a relief—with all of them living together now, he can only imagine how confusing it would be if they all started visiting one another.

"Well, we were both visiting someone else," Edward says. "It's not like I was visiting him."

"But that would mean—he was… with a visitor?"

"With _Evie_ ," Edward says. "And they looked…" he sighs. "You know, when you've slept with the same woman a few times, and you sort of start to get to know what they're into?"

"Not really," Haytham says quietly. "No." His entire sexual history can be summed up with 'not enough time with Ziio' and 'That Night with Shay and Aveline.' He knows… he _knows_ he'll never get another chance to be with Ziio, and he's not entirely sure either Shay or Aveline would want to do anything like That Night ever again. Which is… well, it is what it is. The point being that no, actually, Haytham does not know what it is to make love to a woman he really knows well, in that way.

"Oh," Edward says. "Well—trust me. This was not the first time they've—" he makes an _extremely_ descriptive hand gesture.

"Ah," Haytham says uncomfortably. "But… isn't Evie supposed to be with Henry?"

"Yea," Edward says. "Yea, I don't really know what Desmond's thinking, there."

"Desmond does _know_ about Henry, doesn't he?" Haytham asks. It's not really something they've ever sat down and talked about—they've discussed Evie's memory loss in general, but Haytham can't remember them ever mentioning that hey, when they'd last seen Evie, during her fight with Starrick, she'd mentioned being engaged.

Haytham had just kind of assumed they'd all heard her say that, but things had been chaotic at the time, and Desmond had been at the lowest point of the bleeding effect, so maybe… maybe he just doesn't know what he's taking from Evie. Haytham decides that he wants to believe that, rather than think that Desmond is purposefully depriving Evie of the man she actually loves.

He knows what it's like to be in love, he wouldn't take that away.

…he _does_ know what it's like to be in love, doesn't he? From his own experience, not just from the animus? Because Altair had Maria, and Ezio had Christina and Sofia, and Edward had Caroline and Tessa _and_ probably Mary. Haytham had loved and lost Ziio, and Connor had legitimately loved Emily, before she left and took their children with her, and Shay and Aveline… well, there is certainly nothing more to be said there.

Desmond had slept with Lucy once, and while he's very clearly glad Elena had come out of that, he doesn't seem particularly inclined to repeat the experience. Even if Lucy had still been alive.

"Do you think he loves her?" Edward asks. Apparently, his mind has been running along the same general lines as Haytham's. "I sort of thought they were just having fun, but it's Desmond, isn't it? He gets so uncomfortable about this kind of stuff, it makes me think he wouldn't go there unless he really _loved_ her."

"I think you might be right," Haytham says uncomfortably. "But he can't."

"Henry," Edward agrees.

"Damn." Haytham closes his eyes and shakes his head. "This is going to kill him when he realizes."

"We might be overthinking this," Edward suggests.

"You?" Haytham asks. " _Overthinking_?"

"I just mean he might not be that into her," Edward says hopefully. "I mean, it's not like he's talked about her to any of us."

"No," Haytham says slowly. "But do you know who he would definitely tell, if he was serious about Evie?"

He doesn't give Edward a chance to answer, but gets to his feet and hurries out of the room. Elena is parked in front of the TV, coloring something in a purple crayon. Altair sometimes colors with her, and Haytham is pretty sure he's been teaching her to draw, too. Just at this moment, though, she's alone and apparently perfectly happy to color her whole paper purple.

"Elena," Haytham says, crouching down next to her. "Do you know—"

"Grandpa!" she sits up and holds her arms out expectantly to be hugged. Her expression is so hopeful that even though he's in a hurry, Haytham can't say no. He hugs her. She insists on a hug from Edward, too, before she'll let Haytham ask any questions.

"Elena," he says again, when she's finally settled. "Does your dad have a girlfriend?"

"Uh huh." She dumps her crayon box upside down and roots through it until she finds a second purple crayon, which she offers to Haytham. "Color, grandpa?"

"Not right now, Elena. I need to know—"

"Please color?" she begs. " _Please_?"

Haytham takes the crayon, and holds it uncertainly in one hand. "Can you tell me about your dad's girlfriend?"

"Daddy says she's really smart," Elena tells him. "And he likes talking to her, 'cuz she always makes him happy." She gives him a look, and gestures pointedly between the crayon he's holding and her paper. Haytham obligingly starts to color. "But he said _I_ still make him the most happiest, so it's okay." She draws little purple squiggles around the new lines Haytham is absentmindedly scrawling. "And he says her hair is real pretty too, he says if I grow my hair long, he can do my hair pretty just hers 'cuz she showed him how and he used to be not so good at it but he practiced and now he's good, and—"

She keeps talking, but Haytham glances over her head at Edward. Desmond has apparently told Elena a _lot_ about Evie. How have none of them noticed? Haytham feels awful, for being so preoccupied he didn't even notice his son falling in love, for not doing anything to stop things before they got out of hand, for not being there…

"We'll talk to him as soon as he gets back from London," Edward says. "He's supposed to be back soon, isn't he?"

Haytham nods. This is Desmond's first mission away from Elena, and he's been updating them constantly on what he's doing and when he expects he'll be back. "He should be back by tomorrow night."

"Well, that's not long," Edward says cheerfully. "I'm sure things can't get worse between now and then, right?"

-//-

Just at that moment, on a rooftop in London, Desmond is kissing Evie. He's done it dozens of times before, he knows her, knows the feel and taste of her, knows the feel of her smiling against him. But it's their first kiss, from her perspective, and there's something different and nervous and almost shy in her hesitation.

His mind is full of fireworks, and all he can think is how _lucky_ he is. To have all their firsts twice, to have an amazing woman in his arms that thinks he's amazing too. To have met her at all, when they live centuries apart. To be here, _together_ , looking out at the lights of London.

"Don't leave," he says, as Evie resettles herself against him.

"I won't," she says, and the words are something warm and _sure_ inside him. "Never. I promise."


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two scenes that take place during and just after A Very Visitors Christmas

"How did Aveline and Shay do it?" Elena complains.

"Hmm?" Matthew is curled up in his bed, pretending to read (just in case any non-visitors walk in), with Elena pressed against his side. It's the first time in weeks that he's had a visit from an Elena that already knows they're together, and it's an unspeakable relief just to be able to hold her. "How did they do what?"

"Have a relationship," Elena says.

Matthew shrugs. "Near constant sex, from what I've heard."

"That's not what I meant," Elena says. "Even if it is true." She blushes and looks away for a moment, and Matthew can't help grinning at how beautiful she looks at this moment. They haven't been together that long, and they haven't even started talking about sex yet. For now, Matthew is still trying to process the fact that she actually  _ likes  _ him, that she wants to kiss him and be close to him. "How did they know if they were visiting after they knew they loved each other?" Elena goes on, and Matthew remembers that they're talking about Shay and Aveline. It's an effort to think about them and not her.

Matthew has no idea what the right response is to her question, so he squeezes her shoulder instead. Luckily, this seems to help some. "I could ask them," he offers. “Shay or Aveline.”

"Yea?" Elena laughs. "How is that conversation going to work? 'Hey, you're not allowed to know about other groups of visitors until after you're both dead, but can you give me some advice about how to know if my visitor is my girlfriend yet?'" She waits a beat, then nudges him when he doesn't respond. "Matty?"

"Hmm?"

"Are you listening?"

"Sorry. I got a little distracted when you said girlfriend."

She smiles, a kind of crooked, lopsided smile like she's trying not to but can't keep the expression off her face. Matthew's pretty sure his face must look about the same. They just grin at each other like fools for several seconds, then Matthew makes an effort to remember what they were talking about. "Well why don't  _ you _ talk to them, then?" he suggests. "They know about other visitors in your time."

"But that would mean I have to talk to them about how they got together," Elena says patiently. "Which means I'm going to end up hearing too much about their sex lives."

"That's nothing," Matthew says. "Did I ever tell you about the time I visited Rory—he was about four or five, I think—and he walked in on his parents in bed together? I told him they were playing a game, and then he wanted to know what kind of game, so I had to invent rules to some weird jumping on the bed game—"

Elena is bent over laughing before he finishes his story, and Matthew's grinning too. "You should smile more," Elena says when she calms down. "You're beautiful when you smile."

They're kissing when Jeanne-eight years old and actually present, _not_ visiting-walks in, and she clamps a hand over her eyes immediately. "Stop being gross and come downstairs!" she tells them. "It's Christmas!"

"Is it?" Elena asks.

"Yes!" Jeanne says, exasperated. "I think your dad's here, everyone keeps saying his name."

"Oh!" Elena gets out of bed, pulling Matthew along with her. "Well then, let's go downstairs.

"But you can see your dad any time," Matthew complains. "You live with him! We never get to see each other."

"I like Christmas," Elena insists stubbornly. “And so does dad. It's like our thing. So come on!"

They barely make it to the stairs when Rory comes running over to join them—he shoves Jeanne and she shoves him back, but it seems almost perfunctory and neither of them looks angry. Darim (younger, about Rory's age) comes running after him.

Elena gives Darim a high five and then someone yells "HA!" and knocks Matthew to the floor.

"Dead!" Marcello crows from on top of him.

"Aren't you  _ ever _ going to outgrow that?" Matthew complains.

"I don't think so," Jenny says, following Marcello more slowly toward the group, Jacob at her elbow. He must be visiting one of them. "I've seen him pretty old, and still playing around like a child—"

"Good!" Marcello says cheerfully. "I don't ever want to grow up."

"You sound like you're five," Elena says, pulling him off Matthew.

"I'm fifteen."

"I said you  _ sound _ like you're five, not that you're  _ actually _ five."

The bickering continues downstairs, into the room where the tree is. Matthew tries to think of the last time all eight of them were together, but comes up blank. This can't be the first time they've been all in the same place as one big group, can it? Maybe it is. For him, anyway. Jenny and Jacob are ancient, they've probably done this before…

"Oh!" Elena tugs at Matthew's arm, grinning. "Dad  _ is _ here!"

"What?" He follows Elena's pointing finger toward his own father, and for a second he doesn't know what she's talking about. Then he sees it. The strange expression on his father's face, a sort of cautious hopefulness that says he can't really believe he's here. The timid, almost frightened posture as he slumps over in his borrowed skin. "Oh," Matthew says. 

"Poor dad," Elena whispers. She bites her lip, then turns to Matthew. "Can I borrow your body?"

"Why?"

"Just for a second? Please?"

He trusts her. She's a visitor and she's his girlfriend and he'd do more than let her borrow his body if she asked. Matthew nods and in the next second he's a few feet away from where he'd started, watching Elena run toward her father. "Dad!" she calls, in Matthew's voice. Desmond turns around to face her, just as Elena wraps her arms tight around him. "Merry Christmas."

Desmond looks startled and confused, but manages to give Elena a sort of awkward pat on the back. Then his posture shifts, and Matthew assumes his dad must be back in control of the body. He takes his own body back, finishing the hug and stepping away.

And after that, everything is just… good. Great, maybe. It's Christmas, and Matthew is surrounded by his family, by every single one of his visitors, by his girlfriend—it's everything he'd ever wanted in a Christmas, with the addition of some surprisingly good food. At the end of the day, when the younger visitors are asleep and the others are talking together, laughing and reminiscing, Matthew pulls Elena aside, into a doorway. "So," he says.

"So?"

"Look up."

Elena laughs. "Mistletoe?"

"Apparently it's a tradition."

"I know it's a tradition," Elena says. "I'm just surprised you think I need that kind of encouragement."

He doesn't, not really. He'd just wanted to see her smile, and she has. Their kiss starts right then and there, under the mistletoe with snow falling softly outside the window, and doesn't end until Elena's visit finally ends.

It's been twelve hours with her. Twelve hours when they didn't have to worry about anything but each other. He really hopes Elena can get some good advice about visiting relationships from Shay and Aveline…

“Did you have a good Christmas?” Matthew’s father calls on his way through to the kitchen.

Matthew nods. If he closes his eyes, he can still remember the feel of Elena against him. “The best,” he says.

-//-

The day after Christmas is a lazy, peaceful sort of day, and Jacob spends a large part of it babysitting. It's sort of a late Christmas present to Shay and Aveline, and anyway she doesn't really mind. Much. Philippe is old enough to look after himself by now, which means Jacob doesn't have to fight the compulsion to tell him to pull the stick out of his ass every time she agrees to babysit. Jacob has found it pretty easy to get along with Rory—apart from the brief, awkward phase when he'd first found Jacob and Jeanne in bed together. For a while he hadn't been able to get a full sentence out around Jacob, and then he'd been mad for a while, and then he'd calmed down and given up.

But Rory is young now, and has no idea that Jacob is in a serious, committed relationship with his little sister. Of course neither does Jeanne, to be fair. Neither of them have gotten there yet, and so Rory is quite content to sit on the floor next to Jacob's chair and play quietly.

So those two are easy to handle. Jeanne  _ should  _ be easy, but it's hard to see her smile (distinctively Jeanne, even with two baby teeth missing). That smile is supposed to belong to Jacob, and she gives it out so freely now. She'll smile the same way at Jacob as she does at her mother, or her brothers—it's hard for Jacob to know she isn't special yet.

Tomas, of course, is a right little terror, and Jacob would have had her hands full with him alone, even without his three older siblings to distract her. She's just returned from chasing him down when she realizes Jeanne has arrived. An older Jeanne ( _ Jacob's _ Jeanne). She hadn’t even noticed the little itch of being visited at the back of her skull, she’d been so distracted by Tomas.

Jacob sits down next to Jeanne, and Jeanne smiles at her—and there it is. That's the smile Jeanne saves only for Jacob, the one that still makes Jacob feel like the most important person in the world. Jacob smiles back, but does nothing more. They're trying to keep their relationship a secret from Jeanne's younger self, mostly because Jeanne apparently hadn't seen that first kiss coming.

"I remember this Christmas," Jeanne says fondly, as her younger self crawls up onto her lap. She settles the girl against her chest and strokes her hair absentmindedly. She's the only one of them that really likes being around herself like this. Everyone else is slightly uncomfortable, but Jeanne is totally fine with it. Well, everyone has their quirks. At least she doesn't go around fake assassinating everyone the way Marcello does.

"This isn't Christmas," Rory says. " _ Yesterday  _ was Christmas. You missed Christmas."

"I saw this Christmas decades ago," Jeanne says.

"Doesn't count—"

"Does too!" the younger Jeanne pipes up.

They start bickering together, all three of them, and Jacob can't help laughing at the easy way they fall into the familiar sibling rivalry. Rory eventually goes sulking off (it's not his fault there are two of them—he can't be expected to win against two of his sister at once). The younger Jeanne goes running off after him, and Jacob can hear the argument continue down the hall. It sounds like they're going to bother Philippe, so Jacob lets them go without protest.

"What's that?" Jeanne asks, edging over to Jacob and pointing to the paper lying next to her.

"Uh—Christmas present." She grins and shifts it closer to let Jeanne see as well. "Shay gave it to me—picture of my mother."

"Hmm," Jeanne says in a tone of mock confusion. "However could he have met your mother when she died before he was born?"

"It really is a puzzle," Jacob agrees.

"Truly."

Jacob laughs. "I wonder who really drew it," she says. "I know it wasn't father—Jenny says he can't draw anything but stick figures. And penises."

"Unsurprising," Jeanne says. "Maybe Altair? It looks a bit like Elena's style, and we know he taught her to draw."

"It was kind of him, then," Jacob says. She touches the drawing gently, tracing the lines of her mother's face.

"I think she looks a lot like you," Jeanne says, leaning closer.

"I don't see it," Jacob says. Because her mother is… not beautiful, maybe, but handsome.

"No," Jeanne says, pointing down at the picture. "Look, just there—"

And as Jacob bends down to try and get a better look, Jeanne turns her head and catches her suddenly on the ear with a quick kiss. "See?" she says. "And here—" she plants a second kiss on Jacob's eyebrow. "Here, and here—"

She leaves a trail of kisses across Jacob's face, and Jacob draws her close. They don't pull away until the younger Jeanne comes running back in to complain about Rory. Jacob tries to steady her face, to look like she  _ hadn't _ just been interrupted in the middle of a wonderful kiss. The two Jeannes commiserate about their brother, and Jacob lets her attention wander back to the drawing of her mother.

There is a fire there, an energy so strong that it practically jumps off the page. She really had been something special.


	23. Chapter 23

Jacob finds Henry standing morosely in his shop, leaning against the counter and paging laconically through a book he seems to have no real interest in. He looks up at Jacob and manages a forced smile.

"What's wrong with you?" Jacob demands.

Henry opens his mouth, then closes it again and looks away. "I hear recruitment for the Rooks is going well," he says.

The obvious change in subject very nearly works. Jacob _loves_ his Rooks, he loves the excitement of being around them. And he loves being at the top of the heap for once, instead of at the bottom. Maybe Evie is the better assassin of the two of them, but while she's wasting her time chasing pieces of Eden, Jacob is building up a force that can actually make a difference in London.

But _no_ , not today. "Seriously," Jacob says. "You look like someone ran over your dog."

"I don't have a dog," Henry says.

Jacob rolls his eyes and leans himself across Henry's counter and work, forcing Henry to look up at him. It's an entirely effective strategy that Jacob is not ashamed to admit he'd learned from Edward. "So what's wrong?" he asks. "If it's not a dog, is it—" he grins. "Is it my sister?"

"No," Henry says, so quickly that he could not possibly have meant anything but _yes_.

"You know she's seeing someone else, don't you?" Jacob asks, and then instantly regrets his runaway mouth when Henry's expression crumples into one of utter disappointment. It only lasts a moment before Henry composes himself again, but Jacob still feels an unexpected pang of sympathy. He's entirely in favor of letting Evie make her own damn choices about who to sleep with, but it's still not entirely fair to Henry.

They sort of look at each other for a minute, and Jacob teeters on the edge of telling Henry about Desmond and visitors and everything. But he's not actually sure that will make him feel any better, and he's also not sure Henry will believe him.

"Do you want to go get a drink tonight?" he asks instead.

"Ah—" Henry physically takes a step back from Jacob. "It's not that I don't appreciate the offer, but I certainly don't have the same kinds of feelings for you as I do for your sister."

Jacob laughs at him. "Great," he says. "I'm definitely not into you, either. I just thought you might want to get out tonight and stop moping for a while."

"I'm not…" Henry sighs and seems to slump. "Alright," he says. "It couldn't be worse than another night alone."

"I'll buy the first round," Jacob says, forcing a smile that Henry only barely manages to return. "See you tonight!"

-//-

Jacob learns a good many things about Henry Green that night. Some of them aren't very surprising, such as the fact that he can't hold his drink very well. But some of them are considerably more so, such as the revelation that—when he chooses to do so—Henry is actually a pretty good singer.

And he knows a _lot_ more dirty songs than Jacob would have expected.

But all else aside, the night seems to be cheering Henry up considerably, so that's a job well done. Jacob is just patting himself on the back when Evie arrives. Not an actually useful Evie, of course, that would be too much to ask for, apparently. This one looks at least forty, and Jacob eyes her uneasily as she sits down. He's never quite sure what to do with an Evie that's not the same age as him, and it doesn't matter if she's older or younger. Four-year-old Evie is just as terrifying as Forty-year-old Evie, because Jacob doesn't have the same connection to her that he does to _his_ Evie.

Also, five-year-old Evie is terrifying because Jacob never wanted to be involved in his sister's toilet training. _That_ had been a particularly unfortunate Wednesday.

"Jacob," she says, and he can _tell_ she knows how much the age gap irritates him just from her expression.

"Evie," he grumbles.

She looks away from him and laughs suddenly, a fond smile stretching across her face. " _Henry_ ," she says, and Jacob follows her gaze to see Henry unattractively sprawled over a table halfway across the room, giggling with a couple of Rooks Jacob had dragged along.

Jacob squints at him, trying to figure out what about him is making Evie smile like that, but… nope, nothing.

And then it hits him, like a bolt from the blue, and he leans over and hits Evie on the arm. "You _do_ love him!" he accuses. "And here I am, telling all our visitors you should be allowed to love whoever you want, and all along you loved him anyway! Whatever happened to Desmond?"

The smile fades from her face, slipping away so quickly that Jacob almost regrets his question.

"Desmond is… he'll always be…" She looks away, and Jacob can't read the expression on her face. Maybe it's the years between them, or maybe whatever complicated ties there are between Evie and Desmond and Henry are just something Jacob cannot (or _should_ not) be part of. "He's Desmond," Evie finishes quietly. "But things are complicated."

Jacob shakes his head. "I don't get it."

"Well, you're not there yet," Evie says. "Be patient. And…" she hesitates. "There was a time when I really needed you, Jacob. Because something big happened. Probably not too much farther in the future, for you. I didn't know what to feel about Desmond, or Henry—I barely knew how I felt about myself. I was a _mess_ , Jacob, and the only thing I was sure of at that point was you. So… when that happens, just be there for me."

He nods. "Any chance you could give me a better idea of _when,_ exactly, this emotional meltdown of yours is coming?"

She grins at him and shakes her head, but answers. "Just after we fight Starrick."

They're going to fight Starrick? That should be fun. "And when is _that_ , exactly?" Jacob demands, but Evie vanishes before she can answer. She probably wouldn't have explained anymore even if she'd stayed.

Henry chooses this moment to vomit loudly, and Jacob decides it's time for both of them to leave.


	24. Chapter 24

Ezio comes home early to find Elena lying on the couch and making noises he knows full well women don't make by themselves. But there's no one else there, just Elena, and it takes Ezio an embarrassing full minute to realize someone's visiting her.

"Elena?" he says. "Are you… who are you kissing?"

A part of him is just genuinely nosy, but most of him is sort of really hoping she's not kissing Marcello. He's still not ready to think about his son being old enough to have a girlfriend.

"Uh…" Elena sits up, running a hand through her hair and grinning. She glances sideways and _giggles_ (she's never been a giggler, not as long as Ezio's known her), and makes a motion like she's playfully shoving someone away. "Matthew." She laughs again, all giddy teenage excitement.

"Okay," Ezio says. He feels like something more needs to be said, but he isn't quite sure what that something is. If he'd walked in on one of _his_ visitors having sex, he'd have offered a few tips and walked off smiling. He's not at all comfortable doing the same with Elena.

"Is he wearing a condom?" he asks instead.

Elena's smile turns instantly to a look of horror. "Do we have to talk about this?" she demands. " _Really_?"

"How would that even work?" Ezio goes on, mostly to himself. "I mean, Matthew's just _visiting_ , so anything you two think he's wearing would actually be something you're wearing, but you can't wear a condom—"

Elena makes a strangled noise of unhappiness and stares at him. "We weren't even having sex!" she protests.

"I'm just saying, visitor or not, you need to think about safe—"

"Why am I getting this lecture from _you_?" Elena demands.

"Because I'm here," Ezio says sadly. "Trust me, I wish I wasn't right now."

"Me too," Elena sighs. "This is very, very awkward."

It continues to get more awkward until Ezio decides there is nothing more to be said, and leaves the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had no idea where this was going, and then I got to the end and decided it was too awkward to continue. So I stopped. xD


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Riona, this one's mostly for you.
> 
> ...in other news, I swear I am capable of of writing stuff that isn't Desmond/Evie.
> 
> (I can stop whenever I want to)

Haytham's first visit with Evie after her shroud induced amnesia is a sad affair. They'd been friends… or friendly, at least. Now she stands as far as she can get from him, arms crossed and eyes narrowed. "You're a templar, aren't you?"

"Yes."

Evie snorts. "Desmond's told me about you," she says.

"Has he?" Haytham asks. He's still trying to adjust to Desmond and Evie being together—it had led to Haytham's first ever argument with Desmond. Haytham had flat out told Desmond Evie was supposed to be with Henry, and Desmond had _shouted_ back at him that he didn't believe it. They'd left things badly, and Haytham hasn't been able to bring it up again. It feels wrong to broach the subject now with Evie, so he lets her direct the conversation.

"Desmond _likes_ you," Evie says. "Why?"

"What kind of question is that to ask a person?" Haytham asks.

"I just want what's best for him," Evie says.

"So do I," Haytham says, coolly. "Which I assume, incidentally, would be the reason he likes me."

"But you're a templar," Evie says. "Why should you care?"

Haytham sighs and raises his voice. "Desmond!" he calls. "Evie's here!" At this point, it seems easier to just let the conversation die than try to convince her he's trustworthy. They haven't been visiting very long, and while Haytham hopes they can trust one another someday, they clearly haven't reached that point yet.

Desmond comes hurrying out of his room, grinning, and Evie's expression of mistrust vanishes as soon as she sees him. Her whole face lights up, and she uncrosses her arms.

Haytham is just resigning himself to an awkward visit spent watching the two of them, when Elena comes running after Desmond. "Daddy!" she calls. "Daddy, is your girlfriend visiting?"

"I…"

"Girlfriend?" Evie asks. "Are we that official?"

Desmond's face goes bright red, but he smiles. "I thought it would be easiest for her to understand."

Evie crouches down in front of Elena, still smiling. Elena's eyes sweep right through her, and she looks up at Desmond expectantly.

Desmond shifts Elena slightly, tilting her head down and forward until she's looking right at Evie. Elena giggles and waves hello. "Hi!" she says. "My daddy likes you a _lot_."

"It's true," Desmond says, hugging Elena. His face is red, but he looks proud rather than emberrased. "I like _both_ of you a lot."

"She's Elena, right?" Evie asks, looking at Desmond. He nods. "Well tell Elena it's very nice to meet her."

"Evie says it's nice to meet you," Desmond says dutifully, and Elena's eyes light up.

"Really, daddy?" she asks. " _Really_ her name is Evie?"

"Yea," he says. "Why—" 

Elena breaks away from him and goes running away—for a second Desmond, Evie, and Haytham all just look at one another in relatively equal confusion.

"So…" Evie says, after the pause has stretched on a while. She looks like she's trying not to laugh. "Does this happen a lot?"

"Well, it's never boring here," Desmond says.

"I'd imagine there are a lot of reasons for that," Evie says. "With this group."

"You've met my father, then?" Haytham asks, and Evie actually _does_ laugh. Just for a second, before apparently remembering that he's a templar and therefore not allowed to have a sense of humor. She stops.

The silence then might have started to stretch out awkwardly, but then Elena comes back holding a stuffed toy. It's not her lion (Kitty's still her favorite, even as she's started to gather a collection of other toys), but Haytham can't keep track of assorted other stuffed animals. This one looks… sort of like a fox? Maybe? Or possibly a dog?

"This is Eevee too!" Elena says, holding the stuffed animal up in Evie's general direction. "Clay lets me watch him play his video games, and Eevee is my _favorite_ Pokemon, so he got me one for Christmas!"

Evie looks monumentally confused by this explanation, which Haytham doesn't blame her for at all. He is vaguely aware that Pokemon is a game that Clay likes to play around with whenever he has free time, and of course that Clay is one of Elena's favorite people, so of course she'd like watching him play—beyond that, Haytham has no idea. Desmond at least looks like he gets the joke, but then he's from this century so he has the advantage.

"Daddy," Elena says, looking up at Desmond. "Can you give _my_ Eevee to _your_ Evie?"

"Visiting doesn't work like that, baby," he says, as Elena thrusts the toy toward him. "I can't give things to visitors. It was very nice of you to think of her, though."

"You gave Kitty to grandpa," Elena argues.

"Well… yea," Desmond admits. "But I don't know how—"

"Try?" Elena asks. Desmond starts to waver, and Elena seems to pick up on this. " _Please_?" she asks, in her sweetest voice. "If you like your Evie, I know she'll take good care of my Eevee."

"Elena—"

_"Pleeeeeeeeease?"_

Desmond sighs and nods—Elena beams as he takes the stuffed animal from her and hands it off to Evie. Then she hugs Desmond. "I gotta go tell Clay that I met a real, live Evie," she announces. "He's gonna think it's so cool!"

Evie watches her go, then looks down at the stuffed animal and sort of pats it on the head. "Elena's sort of amazing, isn't she?" she asks. Desmond smiles at her in a way Haytham wouldn't have imagined possible a year or two ago.

"Yea," he says. "Yea, she sort of really is."

And Haytham just stands there, tied to Evie until her visit ends, thinking how unfair it is that Desmond had to fall for Evie of all people. She's an assassin, intelligent and loyal, and she obviously cares for him as much as he cares for her—she even likes Elena (although in Haytham's highly biased opinion, it would be difficult not to). And yet, there's no way this can work. No way.

Eventually Evie's visit ends and she vanishes (taking the stuffed toy with her, Haytham can't help noticing—it does seem to be a particular talent of Desmond's, passing things onto visitors in different times. Impossible as that may seem). Desmond looks at Haytham, obviously hoping for approval. "So," he says. "Do you like her?"

"I… like her," Haytham says cautiously. "But…" He can't bring up Henry right now. He _should_ but he _can't_.

Desmond eyes him cautiously, but when Haytham doesn't push, he just smiles. "I like her too," he says. "I really, _really_ like her."

"Elena must like her too," Haytham says, still groping for something to say that won't end in another fight. "She gave her that Eevee thing."

"Yea." Desmond laughs a little. "Personally, I think she would have liked a Jolteon better."

 _"What_?"

"Sure," Desmond says. "I think you'd probably like an Umbreon best, by the way."

"I have _no_ idea what you're talking about." 

Desmond seems perfectly happy to ignore Haytham's continued protest, going on in a tone of absolute satisfaction. "And I'd want an Eevee," he says. " _My_ Evie."

-//-

Many years in the past, Evie curls up on her bed on the train, holding Elena's gift tucked up in her arms. It smells very, very faintly of Desmond—or of the future, which to Evie has come to mean basically the same thing. She closes her eyes and breathes in, grateful. Grateful for Desmond, grateful he likes her, grateful that even his _daughter_ had liked her. Evie had been worried about that, she's not usually good with kids, and she knows Elena is important to Desmond. But everything had gone really, really well.

She feels a buzz in the back of her head and rolls over to see who her visitor is. It's Jacob, maybe five years older than she is. He looks at her, and maybe it's the expression on her face or the toy in her arms, but something about her makes him seem… sad.

It's odd, not to be able to look at her brother and know exactly what he's feeling. It's hard, when they're not the same age. Evie isn't sure she'll ever get used to it. "What's wrong?" she asks.

"You really have it bad for him, don't you?" he asks.

"Is that such a bad thing?" Evie asks.

She sits up, and Jacob joins her on the bed. "Evie and her Eevee," he says fondly, poking the toy in the side of the head. "Don't take it too personally when the me in this time laughs at you about that."

" _Jacob_ \--"

"Because I thought the whole Evie/Eevee thing was _really_ funny at the time."

"Is that such a bad thing?" Evie repeats, louder and more slowly. Sometimes it's hard to keep him on track. "Jacob, I _like_ Desmond."

"It's not a bad thing," he says. "I guess. I just don't like seeing you hurt."

"I'm not," Evie says, holding her Eevee safely out of poking range (she feels absurdly happy that Desmond's daughter had liked her enough to give her a toy she so obviously likes--Jacob is not allowed to go poking holes in it). "I'm not hurt, I'm _happy_."


	26. Chapter 26

Elena is looking for Aveline, but she finds her mom instead.

Well that's—that's… awkward. Even more awkward is Cello tagging along at her side, big eyed and unusually silent. He's already told Elena he thinks she's going to die, which is worrying, coming from him because even though he's a  _ huge  _ pain, he also knows just about everything about everything. He reads too much.

"Hey, baby," her mom says, and Elena shifts uncomfortably. It's nothing about her mom, really, she just feels gross right now, and she has to talk to Aveline. She  _ loves  _ her mom, she really does. The three years since they've been reunited have been great. She still doesn't get along with Elena's dad, not as much as Elena wants them to. She still doesn't understand why they don't love each other—they must have before she was born, that's how babies are made. She'd asked her grandpa once, and he'd turned a very funny color and said that when a man and woman love each other a lot, the woman just gets pregnant ("Like magic?" Elena had asked, and he'd sort of coughed and nodded a little before changing the subject completely).

So if her mom and dad loved each other enough to make a baby, what happened  _ after  _ she was born to make them not love each other anymore? And Elena doesn't… she doesn't really think it was all her fault. She knows her dad had almost died when he saved the world. And her mom had almost died when she was pregnant. So maybe that has something to do with it.

But maybe it's just a little bit Elena's fault.

Either way, she doesn't really feel comfortable talking to her mom about her current problem. It's just—she doesn't know her mom as well as she wants. They have fun together, they go places together (although never alone—Elena's dad always insists they go with him or one of the others, like he doesn't trust Elena's mom for some reason). But she doesn't live with them. She just comes by to visit (normal visits, not visitor visits), and of course Elena still sees her sometimes at school. She's not sure she feels okay asking her mom about this.

"Is Aveline here?" she asks. "I just have to ask her a question."

Her mom points outside. "She's with Shay."

"In the garden?" Elena calls over her shoulder. She's already halfway to the door.

"Yes. Elena?"

She stops and looks back. "What?"

Her mom looks slightly confused. "They're not… actually gardening out there, are they? I mean…"

"Oh, no." Elena grins, distracted for a second from her worrying. "They thought it would be nice to make a garden, now that we actually have a place with a yard, but they mostly just go out there and kiss."

"Oh."

"It's really gross, but they do it all the time." She shrugs. That's just what they do. When her mom gives her a kind of hesitant nod, Elena runs outside. Normally she's not supposed to interrupt Shay and Aveline when they're kissing, because they take their clothes off, but they don't do that when they're outside so Elena figures she's probably safe. She has to kind of shout at them to get their attention, and for maybe a second they look annoyed. But they're obviously used to being interrupted, it happens all the time because they kiss  _ all the time _ (don't they have anything better to do? They could play games or climb stuff instead), and neither of them gets mad at Elena.

"You're gonna  _ die _ , Elena," Cello says miserably.

"I'm not going to die!" she snaps at him. She's worried enough to actually  _ yell, _ which makes Shay and Aveline look at her nervously.

"I'm pretty sure you  _ are _ ," Cello argues. "That's not normal!"

"Hey," Aveline says, putting her hands on Elena's shoulders and turning her so they face one another. "Elena, what's wrong?"

She wavers for a moment, torn between Cello still morosely predicting her death and Aveline trying to help. She doesn't want to cry, because she's twelve and that's way too old to cry. Unless Cello's right, unless she really  _ is  _ dying, because that's a perfectly valid reason to cry. Besides, she's just feeling weirdly teary today, she can't help it. She leans up to whisper in Aveline's ear, because dying or not she doesn't want Shay to know. It's bad enough that she'd told Cello, but she'd been scared…

"My pee is bloody," she whispers. "Cello says I'm gonna die."

"Oh, Elena." Aveline hugs her hard.

"Is he right?" Elena asks. "Am I gonna die?"

"No," Aveline says. "No, this is—Shay, can you go and get Lucy?"

Elena doesn't really hear what Shay says, but he leaves (she wishes he could take Cello with him), heading for the house. "What is it, if it's not going to kill me?"

"It  _ might  _ still kill you," Cello says.

Elena kicks him in the shin, and he whines in pain. "Aveline," she says. "What's wrong with me?"

But Aveline doesn't answer before Shay comes back out with Elena's mom.

"What's wrong?"  she asks, looking between Aveline and Elena.

Aveline pats Elena on the back. "Someone just got her first period," she says.

"Oh," Elena's mom says, in a voice that says she understands completely. Elena doesn't understand.

"What does that mean?" she demands. "What's a period?"

"Did your dad ever tell you…" her mom hesitates. "Anything? About, um… where babies come from, or…?"

"What?" But grandpa says that's just what happens when two people love each other, what does that have to do with bloody pee?

"Oh," her mom says. "Well then, I guess we're going to have to have the talk?"

"A talk about what?" Elena asks. She can't help feeling nervous, even when her mom sits her down on the grass next to what is supposed to be Shay and Aveline's garden.

"Not a talk," her mom says. " _ The  _ talk."

And the only thing that makes the rest of the conversation less embarrassing than it could have been is that Cello is stuck right next to her, apparently torn between his voracious appetite for new knowledge and a slowly growing horror of the things that apparently happen inside a woman once a month. And then they move onto explaining sex (which is even worse because  _ OH GOD that's what Shay and Aveline keep doing with their clothes off),  _ and in the end Elena's mom takes her inside to show her what pads and tampons are for and then soften the blow with ice cream.

"I almost wish I  _ was  _ dying," she tells her mom miserably. She’s still trying to wrap her mind around the whole concept of sex, while her memory keeps unhelpfully reminding her of all the times Shay and Aveline had gone into their room and locked the door and started making noise.

And her mom smiles a little and kisses the top of her head. "You are very definitely your father's daughter," she says.


	27. Chapter 27

Jacob isn't at the homestead when Jeanne is born. She'd thought about it—she knows Jeanne's birthday, of course. And she'd been there a year earlier for Rory. But she's not entirely sure she'd be able to keep herself from breaking down if she's there for the birth itself, and it's not like she would be able to explain to Jeanne's parents that their newborn daughter is the most important person in her life. She can't imagine a way that conversation could possibly end well.

So she just leaves. She takes work on a ship that happens to be passing through, and leaves in the middle of the night without telling anyone. Jenny is there, anyway, and she's always been the more responsible sister. She knows Jeanne's birthday as well as Jacob does. She'll put two and two together when she sees Jacob is gone, and make up some excuse the others will believe.

Then she'll let Jacob have it, for leaving without any kind of explanation. You're too  _ old _ to be running off to the sea, she'll say, and maybe she'll be right. Jacob is seventy one years old, and her bones ache. But there is always room on a ship for those that are unafraid of hard work, and Jenny's objections are a problem for later. And so Jacob spends three months at sea, calmed by the familiarity of the smell of the water and the work at hand, trying not to think about anything.

She gets no visits from Jeanne in all that time. Once or twice, Jacob wonders with some guilt if fleeing the homestead before Jeanne's birth has somehow driven Jeanne away from her as a visitor. Maybe it has—she hasn't gone this long without seeing Jeanne since before their first kiss, half a lifetime ago.

Part of her is grateful. She doesn't want to be reminded that she's running away. But mostly she just feels alone.

She doesn't want to stay away forever, and anyway she expects Shay and Aveline to have left the homestead already. She can put off meeting Jeanne in person for just a little bit longer. That's the plan, anyway, but the first thing she sees when she returns to the homestead and gets to the big house is Aveline, trying to corral five year old Philippe. Jacob stands uncertainly in the doorway, watching in silence until Aveline manages to catch her runaway son and looks up to see Jacob.

"You're back," she says, ducking one of Philippe's swinging fists. "Jenny will be glad to hear it." She smiles encouragingly and Jacob makes an effort to smile back.

"I'm surprised you're still here," she says.

"Still waiting for Shay to return," Aveline explains. "I expect he must have run into rough waters, else he'd be back already."

"Oh." Jacob isn't sure what to say. The only thing she can think of is Jeanne, somewhere in this house, so close and yet… and yet…

She's a newborn. Only a few weeks old. Jacob is a fully grown woman. She is  _ old _ , however much she tries to deny it to herself. This whole situation is grossly unfair, to both of them. Jacob will get to meet Jeanne in person, to  _ physically _ hold her in her arms, instead of just on visits. But Jeanne will be a baby. Maybe, if Jacob is lucky, she'll live long enough to see Jeanne start to grow up. Jeanne was—will be--twenty when she and Jacob get together. Jacob entertains no illusions that she will still be alive at ninety three to see that in person. And even if she somehow makes it—no. There is no way they will ever be able to love one another at the same time.

"Jacob?" Aveline asks, and Jacob starts a little, realizing she's just been standing there, lost in her own thoughts. "Are you alright?"

"Fine," Jacob says. "Just tired. I'm getting too old to leave the homestead for so long."

Aveline nods understandingly, and Jacob excuses herself. She heads up the stairs, legs protesting with every step, and pauses in front of the room Aveline and Shay use when they come to stay with Connor. Philippe and Rory are in a room down the hall (Jacob can hear Philippe chattering happily to his brother), but Jeanne is in a little bassinet set up near her parents' bed. She's asleep, and Jacob physically cannot stop herself from walking toward her. Picking her up. Tucking her in close to her body, close enough that she can feel the rise and fall of Jeanne's chest as she breathes.

For a long time, Jacob sits there, watching Jeanne sleep and longing for a real relationship that she can never have. Eventually, when the room has gone dark around her, Jacob is snapped out of her daze by a commotion downstairs. She recognizes Shay's voice, and then she hears heavy footsteps running upstairs. Jacob, who has settled back on the bed at some point, rises self-consciously to her feet. When Shay comes in, he barely even spares a glance at Jacob. He only has eyes for Jeanne at the moment, and Jacob knows it is time to say goodbye. Well, it will be no more difficult than the end of a visit.

"You have a lovely daughter," Jacob manages to say at last. Her voice is hoarse. Shay is reaching for Jeanne, but Jacob is still struggling to give her up. She knows that Jeanne still has many years ahead of her before she is ready to even think about a relationship. She also knows the close relationship Jeanne has with her father, and Jacob certainly doesn't want to take that away.

It is still nearly impossible to hand Jeanne over.

But Jacob manages it in the end, and walks out of the room without saying so much as another word to Shay. He doesn't seem to notice, every iota of his being focused intently on his daughter. Out in the hall, Jenny waits with far more sympathy than Jacob had expected to see. "I'm sorry," Jenny says, and Jacob only nods.

"She is a beautiful baby though, isn't she?" Jacob says, her voice almost wistful. Jenny reaches out and squeezes her sister's hand.

"She is," she agrees, and gestures a few feet down the hall to the room they share. "And I have a visitor here that might cheer you up."

"What?"

But then Jenny opens the door, and Jacob sees Jeanne there, waiting for her. And this Jeanne, unlike the infant down the hall, is only visiting, but she's  _ Jacob's _ . She's as old and as wrinkled as Jacob, but her back is straight and her eyes are lit up in that special way Jacob knows so well. Jacob squeezes Jenny's hand in silent thanks, and her sister goes out to the hall to give them privacy.

"I missed you," Jacob says.

"I love you," Jeanne answers, and there is such absolute conviction in her voice that all Jacob's worries, all the hurts of seeing the newborn Jeanne who cannot love her, all that is washed away. At least she still has this, her visits. She will always have this, and this has always been enough. She steps forward, wrapping Jeanne in her arms and kissing her, long and deep and slow. After more than half a century together, they know each other as intimately as any two people can. The kiss is a thing of beauty, worked at and perfected over a relationship that has been unpredictable and sporadic but never short on love.

When they finish, the two of them curl up in bed together, talking and bickering in an easy, familiar way. In the end, when the three months at sea finally catch up to her, Jacob falls asleep with her head resting on Jeanne's shoulder. For the first time in a long time, she sleeps peacefully.


	28. Chapter 28

Jacob stumbles and falls hard against the deck of a ship that hadn't been there a second ago. "Okay!" he calls. "Where am I this time?"

He spins around wildly, half because he's trying to figure out who he's visiting, and half because ships make it _very_ hard to stand up straight. There isn't a single face he recognizes here, though, so Jacob raises his voice and shouts. "Hey!"

No one answers him.

"Hey!" Jacob shouts again, even louder. "Who am I visiting?"

The large man at the helm sighs and half turns to keep Jacob out of his line of sight. Jacob perks up and heads toward him—his suspicion that this is the man he's visiting quickly solidifies into fact as the man winces.

"Have we met yet?" Jacob asks. "Because I have absolutely no idea who you are."

"I'm the madman with the increasingly strange hallucinations," the man says, still not looking at Jacob. "It's bad enough that I'm seeing Edward Kenway, of all people. I don't need to start hallucinating people I've never even met."

"I'm not a hallucination," Jacob says. "See, there's this thing called visiting, and—hey, listen, can I at least have your name?"

"If you're a hallucination, you only exist inside my own mind," the man says. "So you should already know it."

"Right," Jacob agrees. "But I _don't,_ so clearly I'm real."

"This is terrible logic."

"It's _your_ logic!" Jacob grins at the sheer absurdity of this conversation. "You said a hallucination would know your name. I don't, so I must be real!"

"You're obviously pretending you don't know to confuse me."

 "That's  _dumb_ ," Jacob laughs.

The man gives a long suffering sigh. "Adewale," he says. "And yours, figment of my imagination?"

"Jacob."

"Jacob," Adewale repeats. "I've never known a Jacob. Where did I pull _that_ name from?"

"My father named me," Jacob says. "Same as most people."

"Except that most people actually exist," Adewale says. "Outside of my own mind."

"Captain?" One of the other men on the ship says. He's been giving Adewale suspicious looks throughout this conversation, and now looks distinctly nervous. "Who are you talking to?"

"No one," Adewale snaps. "Never mind."

The man ducks his head and mumbles some excuse before scurrying away to the front part of the ship. Front part. That doesn't sound like an actual ship part, but Jacob has absolutely no experience from boats, beyond the ones he sees in the Thames, and he has no idea what the real name would be.

"Nose," he decides. "The front part of the ship should be called a nose."

"It's the bow," Adewale says.

"I like nose," Jacob says. Loudly. Adewale groans.

"You can't just rename parts of a ship," he complains.

"Sure I can," Jacob says. "That's the nose. This is the arse end—"

Adewale lets go of the wheel, picks Jacob up, and hauls him over the side of the ship (the arse end). He's only fallen a few feet before the ship, the ocean, and all the sailors vanish, and Jacob is back on the train, safely back in London.

He thinks no more about Adewale for a while, not until his next visit. This one happens to be with Desmond, who looks almost insultingly disappointed to find this particular Frye twin visiting him. Well, Evie's sleeping with him and Jacob isn't, so he can't exactly blame Desmond for the disappointment.

"Hey," he says. "Hey, Desmond, you've been visiting a while, right?"

Desmond nods. "Why?" he asks. "You have questions."

"Sort of," he says. "How do you convince someone you're visiting that they're actually a visitor, and not a hallucination?"

Desmond's mouth twitches into something almost like a smile. "I'm pretty sure you're asking the wrong guy, Jacob," he says.


	29. Chapter 29

Ezio arrives in the aftermath of Starrick's death, looking unusually serious and frowning at the shroud.

"What now?" Jacob groans. He braces himself against the wall with one hand, grimacing and holding a fresh injury on his side with the other. Evie thinks he sounds genuinely exhausted, and she feels much the same. Henry is still out cold on the floor, but she can see him breathing so he's _probably_ alright. She's more concerned about Ezio, and his uncharacteristically glum expression.

"I just had a thought," Ezio says. "Evie, the shroud stole your memories."

She _almost_ slaps him. It's been an impossibly long day, she's tired, Jacob's hurt—the last thing Evie wants right now is yet another argument about who she is supposed to be. She _knows_ who she is supposed to be. She knows it better than any of her visitors, who look at her and see an Evie that doesn't exist anymore, an Evie she doesn't really want to be.

"Ezio," Evie says, in a voice that is calm only because she lacks the energy to be angry. "I don't care about memories I don't have. I don't _care_. I like my life. I like who I am! So stop telling me about all these memories I don't have, please!"

Ezio turns toward her, holding the shroud in one hand. "I will," he says. "I promise, if this doesn't work—"

"If what doesn't work?" Jacob asks. He sounds just as tired as he looks.

"If the shroud took your memories," Ezio says. "There's a chance that it can give them back. If _that_ doesn't work, I'll give up bothering you about this."

"You want me to wear that thing?" Evie demands.

"Just for a minute," Ezio says. "And then I'll leave you alone about your memories, I promise. I'll talk to the others, ask them to leave you alone too."

It's a pretty tempting thought. With Starrick dead and the shroud safely out of templar hands, Evie wants nothing more than to spend a week or so lying around, hopefully visiting Desmond, and not worrying about anything. It would be nice to do all that without having visitors constantly intruding and telling her how wrong her life is.

"Alright," she says, holding out her hand for the shroud. "I'll try it."

"Evie!" Jacob protests. "What if it does something awful?"

"Well at least I'll have you to save me," Evie says, and means it. She couldn't have taken Starrick out without him, and she knows he couldn't have done it without her, either. They may fight, and argue, and disagree about almost everything, but at least she knows he has her back. Always.

"Much as I appreciate the compliment," Jacob says. "I'd rather not see you in danger in the first place."

"I'll be fine," Evie says, and takes the shroud from Ezio. For a moment, as she wraps herself in the smooth fabric of the shroud, Evie feels nothing but a slight embarrassment. Jacob snorts a half laugh, and Evie scowls at him. Then she shivers—the shroud has gone to work on the injuries she picked up in the fight earlier. Well that's not exactly a surprise, it's what the shroud is supposed to do. She'd watched the same thing happen to Starrick not ten minutes earlier. Still, it feels strange.

"Still alright?" Jacob asks.

Evie can't help a thin smile at his concern. "Perfectly alright," she says. "I—"

And then she's not alright, she's being torn into from the inside, and the pain of it turns her legs to jelly and sends her crashing to the ground. The shroud is whispering in her head, it's _laughing_ , but Evie has no room left in her head to understand what it says. She is bursting with memories that aren't hers but _are_. There might as well by two Evies clawing for space in her head, one that has spent the past several months visiting, the one that is in love with Desmond. And then there is the one that had counted herself lucky to meet each visitor only once, that had never known Arno or Adewale, who had loved—

She opens her eyes, and there is Henry, and something in her breaks at the sight of him unconscious. Because this is Henry, _her_ Henry, her… her husband. "No," Evie whispers, and she doesn't know if she's protesting this sudden new/old feeling in her chest, or the fear that something has happened to him.

She cries out, she _cries_. There are tears on her face as she raises her head, and the glare on her face is enough to stop Ezio dead in his tracks as he tries to come close. " _Why would you do this to me_?" she says, and her voice is a heartbroken scream that tears at her throat and turns her words to weapons. Ezio takes a hasty step back, horror on his face, and whatever else Evie might have said to him is drowned by the pain in her head and in her heart. The shroud slips from her shoulders but it's far too late to undo the damage, the _remembering_ it's already caused.

She has two sets of memories of what has happened in the past few months. Two lives, and each has shaped her in different ways, shaped her into two Evies that are fundamentally the same but different on a score of lesser matters. How can she resolve both versions of herself into a single whole? How can she move on from this?

Henry groans, sitting up and rubbing his head.

Evie's heart leaps in her chest, because _yes_ , Henry will be there for her, Henry will make things that much better just by being there.

And Evie's stomach clenches painfully, because _no_ , Henry is not the one she wants, Henry will never be able to help her the way Desmond can.

"Evie?"

She closes her eyes and reaches for Jacob, unimaginably grateful for his presence as he crouches over her. She has two Evies in her head. Two men she would give anything to be with. Two histories that clash and contradict and _fight_ each other for every dominance of her thoughts, for the right to decide the outcome of her every memory, the way two generals might fight for every hill and valley on a battlefield.

But every part of her Evie knows what Jacob is to her. Both histories tell her exactly the same thing, that he is her brother, that he will always be annoying and frequently a real threat to the assassins as well—but also that he will still be there for her when she really needs him.

Jacob holds her close. One hand hugs her tight and the other rests gently on the back of her head, pulling her into his shoulder where she buries her face and cries. He has every opportunity in the world to mock her for her tears and her sudden lack of self (selves?) control, but he doesn't.

He is a single solid point in a world that has turned to fog, and Evie clings to him like an anchor.


	30. Chapter 30

The thing is, Matthew has never thought of Elena like  _ that _ . She's his best friend, even among their visitors, and anyway it's kind of weird that they share the same grandfather. Even if Haytham's not  _ literally _ Elena's grandpa, and it's not like she and Matthew are siblings or cousins or anything.

But still. He's never even thought about kissing her until his first day in New York. Matthew is busy, distracted with trying to find his way to the shop where his uncle is supposed to take him on as an apprentice. He's not really looking forward to it. Shoemaker.  _ Shoemaker _ , of all things. Matthew isn't quite sure what he wants to do with his life. Maybe he wants to be an assassin, like most of his visitors. Maybe he wants to be a templar, like Jeanne. Maybe he'll end up doing something different, like Marcello. He really doesn't want to end up like Jenny (poor, broken Jenny), quiet and sad and hurting too badly for any of them to help, locked up and far away.

But he is one hundred percent sure that he doesn't want to be a shoemaker, and that's what he's thinking about when Elena comes to visit. He barely has a chance to say hello before she's kissing him. She is… um…

He's not even thinking about Elena, in that moment.

He's thinking about shoes. His mind hasn't snapped out of the fear of what his future is going to be yet, and so during his first kiss with Elena, he's thinking about a boring future full of making shoes.

"Matty?" She stops kissing and looks at him. "Are you— _ damn _ , I'm too early."

"What?"

"I, ah—" she backs up, red faced and nervous. "It was a—a dare."

"What?" he sounds like a broken record but he can't think of anything else to say.

"Yea." She nods, too quickly. "I lost a bet with Jacob and she said I had to kiss you—I thought you knew but I guess you, um… you haven't gotten there yet. So… sorry."

"It was just a dare?"

"Just a dare," she confirms.

"Oh. Well it was… it was nice. I mean—not like—not like that, just… it's not the worst dare. It's not like that time Rory dared Jeanne to lick a flagpole in December."

She laughs. Just a little. Mostly she still looks nervous. "I wouldn't have kissed you if I didn't think you were expecting it," she says. "Sorry."

"It's fine." Except it's sort of not. His mouth feels cold where her breath had been just a moment ago, and he tries not to think about it. This isn't right.

"Great."

"Yea."

They don't look at each other. People pass them on the street, shoving Matthew aside and ignoring Elena. Matthew clears his throat. "I should get going," he says. "I need to go meet my uncle."

"Sure." She stares at the ground instead of at him. Her face is still red.

"Elena…"

"Yea?"

"Does Darim know about this?" Matthew asks. "Only—he's your boyfriend. I don't want him to think anything's going on with us."

She almost says something. Stops. Somehow manages to get even more red. "Yes," she says at last. "Sort of."

"He's not going to stab me, is he?"

"No. Aren't you going to your uncle's?"

They don't talk for the rest of their visit, and eventually Elena goes home.

Matthew's mouth still feels cold. He's thinking about kissing her again. And he's thinking about holding her. About whether she would ever want to do that again, maybe not on a dare. He's  _ definitely _ not thinking about shoes.

It's too bad she already has a boyfriend. It's too bad it's Darim, who is a visitor (Matthew's  _ first _ visitor, years and years ago now). It's too bad, because—because part of him is suddenly jealous and angry and he can't believe he's standing here, thinking about kissing his friend's girlfriend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...what, you didn't think Matthew was Elena's _first_ boyfriend, did you?


	31. Chapter 31

Seven years after killing Berg and starting down the path that will (hopefully) lead to the destruction of Abstergo and rebirth of the  _ true  _ templar order, Haytham oversees the first group of initiates as they swear their loyalty and take the ring. It's taken a long time to get here. A lot of work, and a lot of patience. Haytham and Shay have discussed doing this many times already, swearing in those from this century that they have found to be loyal.

But Haytham has always held back. He will not allow these people, these men and women that have proven their loyalty and devotion to their cause, to be put at risk. It is only now, when finally they have done enough to begin to feel some measure of security, that Haytham allows these trusted few to become full templars.

Shay stands by his side during the ceremony, as he has for as long as they've been working together. Haytham catches him grinning, and raises an eyebrow. Shay nods and does his best to look serious again. Well, Haytham can't exactly begrudge him his good cheer. This day has been a long time coming.

There are six people here today, four women and two men, and the first five pass without incident. They say the right words, take their rings, and join Haytham and Shay. But Haytham pauses in front of the last woman. He glances sideways again at Shay, nodding a little, and Shay gets it right away. The others follow him without complaint as he ushers them out of the room, and Haytham turns back to their last initiate.

"Lucy," he says quietly. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Are you asking me because you expect me to double cross you?" Lucy asks. She watches his face without so much as glancing away.

"I'm asking because Desmond is an assassin," Haytham says. "And he has your daughter. But yes, actually, now that you mention it. It's hard to overlook your time as a triple agent."

"I was… confused, then," Lucy says. "I wanted to help people, and I thought the assassins could do that. But William Miles sent me into Abstergo to spy, he left me all alone.  _ Alone _ . I have never felt quite so betrayed as I did then. He was supposed to make sure I was safe, and as far as I know he never even tried. Vidic saw me wavering. He recruited me, promised me a way out and someone to care what happened to me."

"And that's different now?"

"It is," Lucy agrees. "I don't know what Desmond thinks of me…"

Well, Desmond doesn't know what he thinks of her either. Haytham has spent many long nights sitting up with his son, listening to him worry about Lucy, about Elena, about what he's teaching his daughter about her mother.

"But we've talked about  _ this _ ," Lucy says. "I know that working with you won't make him think any worse of me. Like I said, I don't know what Desmond thinks of me but I know Elena loves me. I won't lose her, I…" she tilts her head a fraction to one side and smiles. "I can do this and still be loved, so why would I change sides? And in case your next question is why I would want to join the templars in the first place—it's because I don't believe in what the assassins do. They work in the shadows, they bring chaos everywhere they go. I know there are some assassins that are good people and just trying to do their best, but honestly the world doesn't need more shadows. It needs peace, and as long as the assassins have no one to oppose them, we won't have that peace."

"Then…" Haytham holds out a ring to her, and Lucy takes it. "I am very glad to have you on our side, Miss Stillman."

"Thank you." She closes her hand around the ring.

"May the father of understanding guide you," Haytham says quietly.


	32. Chapter 32

Arno _knows_ he's an idiot for betting his father's watch in a card game, but he'd been so sure at the time that he would win. He hadn't, and so here he is. Stealing it back. Arno isn't very comfortable with the idea of himself as a criminal, but there's no other option now.

He can't lose that watch. He can't.

Unfortunately, it turns out that he can't really steal it back, either. At least not without getting caught, which explains why he's currently running from a pair of men that could have easily beaten him to a pulp if they caught him.

Arno can be fast, when he wants to. But he's scared (because it's going to hurt a lot if they catch him), and he keeps stumbling, making stupid wrong turns and just tripping over his own feet. If he isn't more careful, they're going to catch him. They'll take the watch, and then—

Shit. Arno hasn't been paying attention, and he's run himself into a dead end. With no other choice, Arno catches sight of a half open door and ducks inside. The brothers follow him, so Arno takes to the stairs, running up them as fast as he can. He can hear their heavy boots pounding up just behind him.

He comes out on the roof and skids to a stop because really? _Really_ , this is his big plan? Climb up a roof? What kind of idiot runs around on rooftops like this? Now his only way forward is to jump onto the building next door, which is as likely to end in him misjudging the distance and falling to a horribly painful death as it is in his escape.

"Shit, shit, _shit_ ," Arno mutters, and he keeps muttering it like a mantra as he takes off running toward the edge of the roof. His feet feel like they're fighting him, like they're trying to tell him what an absolute idiot he's being, but Arno manages a wild leap, limbs flailing wildly, and—

He lands on a man, sending them crashing ungracefully to the ground.

"Ow, Arno," he complains, shoving Arno to one side and sitting up. "What are you doing?"

"I…" he sits up too. He's not on a roof, but he doesn't feel the telltale pain of having fallen three stories and landing on the street below, either. "Where am I?"

"Funny," Arno's landing pad says, standing up and brushing himself off. "Come on, I'm about to race a train."

" _What_?" Arno demands. He scrambles to his feet, then does a double take. It's been a while, but he vaguely remembers this face from a dream he'd once had. "J—Jacob?"

"You alright?" Jacob calls over his shoulder. He's several yards away and Arno can't stop himself from stumbling after him, like he's being pulled along on a leash. "You didn't fall on your head, did you?"

"I don't think so," Arno says, but he can't stop the question in his voice. Maybe falling on his head is the best explanation for how he's come to be here, in London (maybe?), which is a city he's never been to except in that one dream. The one where he'd woken in a carriage driven by a man ( _this_ man) called Jacob and his sister, Evie. But that had just been a dream, so this must be one too. Either that or a head injury induced trauma.

"You look all funny," Jacob said. "Come on, the train won't wait for us, and there's no point in racing at all if the train isn't there!"

"What's a train?" Arno demands. "And why are you racing it?"

"You know." Jacob waves a hand vaguely. "A train!"

"You can't just keep saying _a train_ and expect me to know what that means!" Arno says.

"It's like—it's where Evie and I live," Jacob says. "What is wrong with you today, Arno?"

"What's wrong with _you_?" Arno demands. "Why are you acting like I'm supposed to know all this? Or you, for that matter?"

Jacob scoffs and runs back to grab him by the arm. Arno is so surprised by this that he lets himself be dragged away. "Come on!" Jacob says again. "I told you, we can't miss the train!"

There doesn't seem to be much point in arguing. Not when Jacob has his hand tight around Arno's arm like this, pulling him along like an inexorable force of nature. Arno runs along with him, gasping horribly for breath—he's barely had time to recover from the watch chase, and now suddenly he's running again.

The watch—Arno remembers it abruptly and looks down to make sure it's still there. He's almost lost track of it in the insanity of what's just happened, but he squeezes it now, hard and tight, like a lifeline that will take him back home if he only clings tightly enough.

"Come on," Jacob says, when they reach the carriage he has apparently been aiming for. "You navigate, I'll drive." He says it in a perfectly matter of fact tone, as if the two of them do this all the time, then darts upward to the seat. He pats the empty space next to him impatiently, and Arno clambers slowly up to it. He must have hit his head, he's thinking, it's the only possible way any of this can be real.

"What do you expect me to do?" Arno asks. He feels almost dazed, the sights and sounds of the streets around them blending together into a distant blur—men around them call out and jeer, and Arno swears he can hear a bookie calling for last minute bets. Then he hears a rumble and looks up and— _shit_ , is that the train?

"Just the usual!" Jacob calls, and there's a devil's grin on his face as he reaches for the horse's reigns. "I'll drive, you call to me when I need to turn!"

"But—"

It's no use, Jacob obviously isn't listening. The train draws level at them and Jacob shouts for the horses to run. They do, taking off like a shot, and for several streets Arno is so surprised he can't do anything but hang on.

With one hand, obviously. The other hand is clinging to his father's watch, and Arno isn't at all ready to let that go.

Then he starts to catch his breath, and his brain slowly gets working again. He realizes that Jacob isn't paying attention to anything at all but the horse, and in the next moment he sees a larger carriage turning directly into their path.

"Left," Arno says. Jacob doesn't hear him so he shouts "Left, Jacob!" again, more loudly. This time Jacob turns at once, a movement so sharp it almost sends the carriage onto its side. Arno sits up a bit then, starts paying attention, because it is abruptly obvious that Jacob will gleefully drive this carriage into oncoming traffic if Arno doesn't tell him not to. He keeps yelling his directions, and after a while Jacob looks up from the horse long enough to give Arno a disapproving look.

"We're headed _away_ from the train!" he says. "Arno!"

So then Arno has to start keeping track of the train and where it's headed. He doesn't know the city at all, so half the time as he steers Jacob around one blind turn after another, he's just wildly guessing that they're going the right way. He isn't even sure where the finish line is. Or does Jacob just intend to race this train forever? He probably does. He probably wants to keep careening madly after this train thing until the end of time.

Then all of a sudden, Jacob lets out a wild whoop and throws both hands in the air. Arno makes a desperate grab for the reigns and manages to catch them before they go sliding irretrievably to the ground. Jacob slaps him heartily on the back. "We won!" he says. " _Excellent_ , Arno. I'll buy you a drink if your visit lasts long enough to get to one."

Arno says nothing. Instead, he slows the horses and steers them into an out of the way side street. Then he turns to Jacob, and tries three times to get his voice working. Finally, he manages to say, "Will you just please tell me who you are, and what I'm doing here, and what a—a visit is, and _why we just raced that train thing around in a fucking carriage!"_

Jacob's smile, which has not faded since they apparently managed to beat the train, gets wider. "Arno!" he says, delighted. "I didn't know you were capable of language like that."

"Jacob!"

"Fine." He's laughing like the madman Arno is rapidly coming to suspect he is. "This is a visit, we're visitors."

"But what—"

"I'm getting there, I'm getting there! There's a bunch of us. Me and my sister live here in London. It's 1868, in case you're wondering."

"It's… Jacob, it's 1788."

"Yea, for you," Jacob says. "Here it's 1868. And Adewale's… 17-something. I don't know, he thinks he's imagining all of us so he's not very forthcoming on things like dates. He spends a lot of his time in the Caribbean, it's decent. And don't listen if he ever tries to tell you the back of the ship is called the aft. It's definitely called the arse-end."

Arno is absolutely sure this is not true. He's also absolutely sure this _must_ be real, whatever this Adewale might say, because he knows he's not creative enough to come up with all this. So somehow, it's all real.

"And there's this whole other group that was visiting before the four of us," Jacob goes on. "They used to live in all these different times but now they're all in the twenty first century."

"The twenty first?" Arno asks. He can't believe it. That's—1868 is one thing, but the twenty first century is an entirely new millennium.

"Yea," Jacob says. "Yea, they have some crazy stuff in that time. You like it."

"How do you know?" Arno asks.

"Well, you told me so," Jacob says. He sort of half shrugs with one shoulder.

"I didn't!"

"You _will_ ," Jacob says. "See, visiting doesn't really happen in order. So this is your first time meeting me—"

"Second," Arno says. "But last time I don't think you had any more an idea what was going on than I did."

"So that was early for both of us," Jacob says. "But since then I've been having visits an entire month." This comes out with an air of casual pride. "I pretty much have things figured out now. You're obviously still new to all this."

"Yea," Arno agrees. "So… is that it? We just kind of magically show up on visits to each other, and we… we travel in time?"

"Yep," Jacob agrees. "Well, I mean there's other stuff. No one can see you when you're visiting. Just me and Evie, since we're visitors too. If you do anything, touch anything, move anything, it'll look to everyone else like me or Evie is doing it, depending which of us you're visiting. So, ah—" he laughs. Again. "Try not to do anything too stupid on visits, okay?"

"I'll behave myself with your sister," Arno says before he can stop himself. "But I don't think I can make you do anything stupider than the stuff you seem to like doing of your own free will."

Jacob shoves him a little, good naturedly, and Arno shoves him back. Maybe a little less good naturedly. Maybe he's still a little angry about that whole race thing. He must be angry, right? Because his heart is beating a hundred times a minute, and it has to be fear because if it's not fear then it's excitement. And Arno's just a normal guy. He's not the kind of person that enjoys risking life and limb like that, is he?

And then he's back in his own time, still midleap, like no time at all has passed. And as Arno flails wildly through the air, arms pin wheeling like mad just to keep his balance, his mind flashes to Jacob. Imagines the madman—the visitor—urging him on, laughing and laughing because of course he'd be just the kind of guy that would get a kick out of jumping across rooftops, sixty feet or more off the ground.

He gets to the end of the roof. The brothers have given up chasing him (they're not stupid enough to risk that jump—they don't have a Jacob). There's no reason for Arno to keep going, but at the roof's edge he gives his father's watch a brief squeeze, takes a breath—

And jumps to the next one.


	33. Chapter 33

The night of the fight with Starrick, Evie finds herself sitting up in bed, thinking hard. She's in her night clothes, hair mostly undone. She'd let down her normal, elaborate hairstyle and redone it into a single loose braid that reaches halfway down her back. She'd sent Jacob away half an hour ago, because it's been hours since Starrick died and he just keeps hovering over her.

Evie had told him to go out with the Rooks, get some drinks, celebrate. That's what he'd done last time, she'd told him, and he'd looked at her with genuine concern. Because Evie hasn't told him that she remembers, yet. What happened last time. That other life, with Henry…

In the end, he'd only agreed to go because Evie said she was tired and wanted to sleep. Which is true. She is tired, and she does want to sleep.

Only she can't, because as soon as she'd crawled into bed she'd seen the little furry paw sticking out from behind the bed. The Eevee Elena had given her. Evie keeps it hidden, out of sight of anyone that might see it and wonder where she'd gotten something so strange. It's only in moments like this, when she's completely alone, that Evie lets herself take it out and examine it.

She holds it on her lap and pulls it into her stomach, squeezing hard. It doesn't smell like Desmond anymore, it hasn't for a long time. The smells of steam and smoke, of present day London, have crept into the fur and rubbed out everything Desmond had left there.

Evie isn't sure if that makes things easier or harder. She wants the smell back, that reminder of a man she loves and who loves her. But it would be so much easier if she could just scrub Desmond out of her heart the way his scent has gone from the Eevee.

No she doesn't. She wants him here. She wants…

He's there, suddenly, next to her on the bed. Evie breathes in the smell of him.

"It's that night, isn't it?" he asks. Evie notices he's kept a sliver of space open between them, and she's simultaneously grateful and angry. How long is she going to feel like this, like two people trapped in one body?

"Yea," Evie says, after too much of a pause. She risks a look up at him, and sees that he's older. Maybe fifty—he looks like a picture she'd once seen of his father, his birth father, not Haytham. She'd never mention it to Desmond, of course, but Evie sees the resemblance. The big difference is the kindness in his face, in his eyes. That's entirely and completely Desmond.

"I know…" Desmond's words are slow, careful, but his hand makes a brief movement that's fast as lightning. When Evie looks down his fingers are still again, but because Evie is looking for it she sees the little worn space on his finger where the ring had been.

What kind of ring? It's not a _wedding_ ring, is it? Because Evie is still so confused, she can't take any more sadness today. She thinks that if she learned (right here and right now, on this day of all days) that Desmond wound up marrying someone else, it might rip her heart in pieces. And then she'll never be able to put it back together.

Maybe it's not a wedding ring. Maybe in the future, men wear rings for other reasons.

"I know you're confused," Desmond says quietly. "I know you'll be confused for a while. And I know everything is different for you now. What we had—well, I won't tell you your future. I won't tell you what choice you make. But I think you've already figured out that things have changed."

Evie nods, just a fraction. Nothing is ever going to be the same, _nothing_. Whichever one of them she chooses, it won't be the same as it was before.

"But Evie, I'm still your friend," Desmond says. "And you're hurting. And if there's anything I can do to help—"

She lets go of the Eevee with one hand and holds his. Her finger rubs gently against the light patch where his ring had been, but he doesn't seem to notice. She'd half hoped he would, so that he'd offer an explanation. The silence isn't bad, though. She doesn't really mind just sitting here, holding his hand.

"How come you're okay with this?" Evie asks.

"You told me about your remembering years ago," Desmond says. "I—" he looks away. "If you want to see me upset by all this, wait for that visit. I wish I'd reacted better. But I was so, so scared of losing you, and I lashed out. It was wrong."

Evie's scared too. She's scared of making the wrong choice.

Someone knocks on her door, and Evie knows it's Henry just from the pattern. Something in her chest warms up, and she calls for him to come in before she can think what a bad idea this is. Desmond's here. Henry can't see him, but she'll know.

"It's fine," Desmond says. "It's okay."

Henry stops in the doorway, and Desmond gently pulls his hand away to tug the Eevee out of her arms. He drops it behind the bed, out of Henry's line of sight. Evie gives him a vague nod—she'd forgotten to hide it.

"I can come back tomorrow," he says. His voice is distantly polite, the way it sounds when he's talking to a stranger. Evie feels like she's drowning in shame. It's so, so wrong that she's gotten this far and Henry barely knows her. How many conversations have they had, in this time? Maybe a dozen since Evie got to London. He hadn't even come with her to the Kenway mansion this time around—he'd wanted to, but Jacob had been so excited to see the house where two of their visitors had lived. Evie had thought he'd be more useful, and he'd almost burned the place down instead (Haytham had almost run him through in response).

"Don't go," Evie calls after Henry, and he stops again with his back to her.

"You're not—your clothes, I mean. You're not dressed."

He's seen her in less. In another world, anyway. "I don't mind," Evie says quietly. "I wanted to talk to you."

"Good," Henry says, and the rush of relief in his voice makes it sound warm for the first time in…

When had they last had a civil conversation in this timeline? Evie can't remember. She'd made a point of arguing with him when her visitors started telling her they _had_ to be together. What a stupid reason to be mad at someone.

"Did you worry about me?" Evie asks. Henry moves closer to the bed, and she's suddenly very aware that she's physically caught between him and Desmond.

"I always worry about you," Henry says, all in a rush. It's like he's been waiting and waiting to say these things, but her coldness and her anger has scared him off. He leans forward, just a fraction. "The shroud—did it hurt you? You've been acting odd ever since Starrick died."

"It's a long story," Evie says. "I'm not ready to talk about it."

"Oh." He leans back again.

"I'd rather talk about something else," Evie says.

"What?"

"Flowers," she says. "You're—interested, aren't you? I could help you find samples, if you wanted."

"I didn't want to ask," Henry says. He smiles at her, and Evie thinks it might be the first time he's smiled at her in this life. "I thought you would laugh at me."

She might have. And if she had she would have done it to hurt him, to prove to her visitors that she doesn't care for him. "I guess—everything that happened today made me see some things in a different light."

"I'm glad," Henry says. "I've always—I can't help admiring you, Evie, I mean…" he stutters over words he'd said so easily to her in another life. "I would like to know you better," he says.

"I would like that too," Evie says. She gropes for Desmond's hand and he's right there, ready to hold it. She squeezes him, and she doesn't know if she means _goodbye_ or _I'm sorry_ or _it doesn't mean anything_. The only thing she knows right now is that she can't stand to lose Desmond's friendship, and she can't stand to go any longer without Henry's. He squeezes back, and she hopes he's far enough past this moment to understand. "I've been thinking you might want to move some of your things to the train," she tells Henry. "It would be nice to have you around more often."

And Henry is so happy he almost _glows_.


	34. Chapter 34

There is a little boy curled up on Evie's bed when she looks up from her work, and she's not sure how long he's been there. He is very small indeed, barely bigger than Evie's Eevee when he pulls his legs up and squashes himself around it. She knows this for sure, because he's wrapped his little arms and legs around the stuffed toy, and fallen asleep with his chin on top of the animal's head. There's a little trail of drool trailing onto one stuffed ear, and Evie thinks it looks vaguely like the boy's been chewing on it.

She' be mad except she recognizes him at once as Jacob. He can't be more than a year old, but she knows it's him, looking unusually angelic with that pretty smile on his face. It's not cocky yet, he's not showing off. He's just happy, comfortable and warm and full of whatever else babies need to make them smile.

Evie moves to the bed, and awkwardly lifts Jacob into her arms. It would be easiest to let him go on sleeping, maybe. Heaven knows she doesn't need him screaming and crying right now. But he looks so sweet, lying there—so small and quiet and innocent. Protect the innocent. That's part of the creed.

Jacob wakes himself almost immediately when Evie picks him up, kicking and fussing and eventually managing to kick himself in the face. Evie winces and Jacob whimpers even as his eyes open—he squints up at Evie, arms reaching up for her. He makes several more wordless but unhappy noises, and only quiets when Evie presses him to her chest, just above her heart, and rocks him gently. That's when he settles back down, flopping over her shoulder and mumbling nonsense words.

"Mama?" he says, and Evie wonders bitterly how he even learned the word. He can't have any idea what it means. "Mama, mama!"

"No," Evie says. "No, not your mother. Just your sister."

"Mama," Jacob insists, with absolutely typical stubbornness. He still sounds like he's smiling, and anyway Evie has no desire to get into an argument with a toddler, so she lets him get back to his sleepy babbling. He yawns several times, squeaks, trails off into silence. Evie lies back on the bed and lets Jacob curl up on her chest like a cat, smiling and only occasionally kicking her in his sleep.

The door bangs open just then, and Evie puts one hand protectively on Jacob's back, half lifting herself up and readying her hidden blade. But it's just Jacob, of course it is, and Evie relaxes. "Jacob!" she hisses. "What are you doing?"

"Look who came to visit me!" Jacob says. Then he catches sight of the baby on Evie's chest and beams. "But I see your visitor is much more impressive.”

For a moment she thinks he's laughing at her—certainly they are never as openly affectionate with each other as Evie is being with the infant Jacob. But then she sees that Jacob is holding a baby too, holding it tight with both hands like he's terrified of dropping it, like that would just be the worst thing in the world, and she thinks she understands. He's holding her.

“Shove over,” Jacob says, and Evie moves without protest to let Jacob sit next to her on the bed. Jacob—the younger one—shifts against Evie. He runs his face against Evie’s shoulder, and his eyes blink slowly open. Then he sees the little Evie, fast asleep against Jacob, and makes a squealing noise that Evie can only describe as something between the sound a pig makes and absolute joy. He flops toward his sister, so suddenly that Evie really has to concentrate to keep from dropping him. Jacob laughs at the noise but the little Evie wakes up and her face crinkles like she wants to cry. Evie watches with a kind of horrified fascination—it’s impossibly strange to see herself like this, so young and outside her own control.

Little Evie sees the younger Jacob then, and it's truly amazing how quickly her expression changes. She flips from the brink of tears to absolutely beaming in an instant, and answers her brother’s squeal with a shrill shriek that's part laugh and part something else. Neither baby will settle until the older pair gives in and sets the younger two on the bed between them. The younger Jacob kicks his legs over little Evie’s legs, and she smushes her hand into his face before both of them go immediately back to sleep.

Jacob laughs, so full and loud that Evie is afraid he'll wake the babies. He doesn't, but when she shushes him he leans his head against her shoulder and grins. Evie smiles back and flicks his ear, and both of them settle in to watch the babies sleep on for as long as their visit lasts. 


	35. Chapter 35

The first time Desmond realizes there's something wrong in his relationship with Evie, he's actually visiting Jacob. The man is in the middle of loudly declaring his intention to leave to do something stupid when Desmond arrives, so he only has a glimpse of Evie's face before Jacob is off and running away from his sister, with Desmond trailing along behind him.

That glimpse is enough. In it, Desmond had seen none of the happiness he's gotten selfishly used to seeing when she looks at him. She just frowns, and when she frowns her face folds into worry lines. She won't look him in the eye.

And as Jacob pulls him away, Desmond knows he's failed. The whole of his stomach seems to collapse into a messy, churning goo of horrified guilt as he realizes his worst fear has come true. He's done it. He's messed up so badly that Evie doesn't want anything to do with him anymore, and he doesn't even know what he was supposed to have done.

Just that it's going to be bad.

Jacob, when he (finally) realizes Desmond is visiting, doesn't seem to notice there's anything wrong with him, and luckily Desmond's visit ends before they can get to whatever suicidal thing he's plotting. Desmond… really isn't in the mood for stupid and suicidal today.

He welcomes the return home, but just for a second—then he sees Elena looking up at him, and realizes he's forgotten to keep the pain off his face. He tries to wipe it off but it's too late, he knows his daughter has seen him here, in this unwanted moment of weakness.

"Daddy—" she looks up from her coloring and pats him on the knee. "Daddy, where were you?"

He doesn't answer, but she crawls into his lap and lets Desmond hug her hard. "Do you…" It's so unfair to ask her, to put all his insecurities on her. "Do you love me?"

Elena nods. "Do you love _me_?"

"Of course I do," Desmond says, holding her tighter. "Don't ever doubt that, okay?"

"But you asked me!" Elena protests. "Daddy, where did you go?"

This would be so much easier if she didn't have visitors of her own. Desmond could say he hadn't been anywhere, and she would believe him because he clearly hadn't left. But Elena gives him a look that says she clearly isn't going to buy that and raises her eyebrows. Desmond is pretty sure she'd learned that look from Haytham, and it's amazingly effective, considering he's a templar grandmaster and she's a six-year-old girl. In pigtails. But every time she gives him that look, Desmond just caves. He absolutely can't help it.

"I saw Evie," he says, slowly.

"Did you tell her hi from me?" Elena asks, and Desmond winces. He knows Elena wants to meet Evie _so_ badly, and lately she's started asking Desmond things like that. She's always asking if Desmond talks to Evie about her, and whenever she does something new she'll make sure Desmond knows he's supposed to tell Evie all about it.

"No," Desmond says carefully. "I only saw her for a little bit. I was visiting Jacob."

" _Oh_ ," Elena says.

"And… I don't think…" how is he going to explain this. "I don't think Evie is my girlfriend anymore."

"What did she do?" Elena asks at once, and some tiny, selfish part of Desmond is grateful that she'd leapt to the conclusion it wasn't his fault.

"Nothing, baby," Desmond says. "It was my fault."

"What did _you_ do?" she asks, half disbelieving.

"I don't know yet," he admits. He does not add, out loud at least, that it must have been terrible. Because Evie had… he'd _thought_ Evie had really liked him, and he isn't sure what kind of mistake he could have made to erase all that goodwill. Or maybe he'd just been wrong the whole time, maybe she doesn't care as much as he cared—

No. _No_ , she had cared.

"Desmond?"

He looks up and it's Ezio in the door, looking faintly worried. "What?" he asks.

"Can I talk to you a minute?"

Desmond knows Ezio enough to hear the unspoken _alone_ , and leaves Elena coloring while he goes to talk to Ezio. "What's wrong?" Desmond asks.

"I heard you talking to Elena," Ezio says. "About Evie?"

"Oh."

"It's not your fault," Ezio says. He sounds torn, unsure if he really wants to say whatever he's about to say. "She remembered."

"Remembered what?" Desmond asks, but he already knows. He knows, he just doesn't want to believe it.

"The first time around," Ezio says. "Henry. I was there, I thought the shroud would help her get those memories back. So I told her—I told her to try. And it worked."

"So what you're saying…" Desmond swallows down the urge to shout only because he knows Elena would hear. "Is that she had this life that she didn't remember and didn't want to remember. And because she _didn't_ remember this life, she was happy. And as an added, apparently unimportant bonus, I was happy too."

"Desmond, you're important—" Ezio looks miserable, but Desmond isn't done and isn't ready to let Ezio off the hook yet. He cuts him off with a short, sharp gesture.

"And you just decided that you knew better than her," Desmond says. "So this life that she didn't want, you gave it back to her."

"I was trying to help!"

"You ruined everything!"

"Desmond, she's a historical fact! The same as all the rest of us, history tells us that Evie Frye marries Jayadeep Mir, also known as Henry Green. The templars are interested in her life, did you know that? They're making one of their dumbass Helix games out of her and Jacob. You can track both of their descendants all the way down to the present day, okay? It's like we've been telling you all along, Desmond, you and Evie was never going to w—"

Desmond _snaps_ , and turns to Ezio, shouting. "Fuck you!" he yells, and for once in his life he's not thinking about Elena. "You didn't even give us a _chance_!"

Midshout, Evie just appears in front of him, and Desmond is instantly horrified by the look on her face. "Desmond," she says.

"Evie."

They stare at each other, and then Evie says, "You know."

"Ezio told me," Desmond says. He can't stand the space between them, but he doesn't want to move closer and have her push him away. Or worse, step back, away from him. "You, ah—" he's still angry but suddenly he's embarrassed too, and it's not a great combination. "You love someone else now." She opens her mouth but Desmond's not quite done. " No, wait. You _always_ loved someone else, and I was just something to fill the time with until you could love him again."

"That's not how it was at all!" Evie protests. Desmond isn't sure he's ever heard her so upset, her voice is _breaking_. He wants to hold her, he wants to be the one to comfort her but he knows they're already past it. She won't take comfort from him. "I didn't remember him!"

"But now that you remember, he's the only one that matters," Desmond says. "I don't count.  _We_ don't count."

"You were everything to me!" Evie shouts, very clearly at the end of her rope. "All I wanted was you! And then all I wanted was him, and wanting both of you is tearing me in half. You don't understand anything!"

"I understand that the woman I l— _love_ has decided on someone else instead of me," Desmond says.

Evie stares at him. Then she scowls and looks away, crossing her arms. "I haven't chosen anything," she says. "I don't know what to think but right now, Desmond Miles—" she's close, she's in his face, but the hard lines of her face could not be more different from the closeness Desmond wants. "I am really,  _really_ angry."

"Evie—"

"And Henry brought me flowers."

She vanishes just then, and Desmond hovers for a second, almost swaying on his feet. Then he turns without a word and goes to his room where he crawls into bed, and pulls the covers over his face.

Five minutes later, Elena burrows in next to him. She wraps her arms around his stomach and he strokes her hair. They lie there in silence until Desmond falls asleep—the last thing he hears is Elena promising that it will be okay, and the last thing he feels is a lingering sense of shame that she's the one comforting him.


	36. Chapter 36

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CorylusAvellana asked to see what happened after Darim and Elena broke up, so here you go!

"Don't hate me," Jeanne says quietly.  
  
Darim just keeps staring at her.  
  
"I didn't…" she swallows, hard, and tries not to look at the hidden blade on his arm. "I didn't become a templar to spite you, or anyone else. It's just important to me, and I wanted you to know now, because—look, Darim. You're still my friend. Even if we are on different sides now. And we live hundreds and hundreds of years apart, so it's not like us hating each other is going to mean anything."  
  
He still doesn't say anything.  
  
"Right," Jeanne mutters. "I can't really leave. Um… you know how visiting works. But I'll try to stay out of your hair while I'm here. I wouldn't want you to be bothered by having a templar around—"  
  
"Jeanne!" Darim comes alive without warning, gesturing in frustration. His voice cracks a little. "Will you just shut up about templars and assassins? Just for a minute?"  
  
"What?"  
  
He sits down on the ground, leaning against Masyaf's smooth stone wall. Jeanne joins him. "I don't care if you're a templar," Darim says. "Why would I care? You're a visitor first and then you're a templar. I don't see why you have to make such a big deal about it."  
  
"I don't know! It's just—this is the first time I've seen you since. I thought… look, if that's not what's bothering you, what are you so upset about?"  
  
"Elena," Darim says miserably. "I don't think it's going to work out."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
Darim pulls his knees up close to his chest, crosses his arms over them, and buries his face in his arms. "Because she broke up with me," he says. His voice is muffled, but Jeanne can hear the tears in it anyway. "We had a stupid, stupid fight. She said it was over and I wanted to apologize but the visit ended and I don't know when I'll see her again, or… or where she'll be on her timeline. Jeanne, what if I see her and she's from earlier? And she thinks we're still together? What am I supposed to do?"  
  
"I have no idea," Jeanne says. She puts her arm around his shoulder. It's always hard to get Darim to accept hugs, but today he leans against her without protest.  
  
"That’s not what I wanted to hear," he tells her.  
  
"Sorry."  
  
"Useless templar."  
  
She flicks his ear with her forefinger. "Crybaby assassin."


	37. Chapter 37

It hadn't seemed like a bad idea at the time, of course.

Later, Jacob will relate the whole story back to Evie. He'll start with exactly those words, and she'll _immediately_ come back at him with the kind of exasperated outrage that makes him wonder why he hasn't learned better than to say things like that to her.

But it really _hadn't_ seemed like a bad idea at the time. The thing is, it had started with Shay. They'd been hanging out, in the future (and Jacob will never get over how casually he can say that now, like it's no big deal to just blink and show up in the twenty first century). Shay had been talking to Aveline, which is normally faintly embarrassing because the two of them are like all the worst parts of a pair of lovebirds and one of those doddering old married couples that's been together since the dawn of time, all mixed up together.

At first, their conversation had caught Jacob's attention because they were talking about the upcoming birth of their fifth child, and Aveline had lamented the fact that since Shay wasn't visiting her anymore, she'd have to give birth all by herself.

Which is how Jacob had come to learn that visitors can _possess each other_ , which is quite frankly the best news he's ever heard. There have to be so many ways he can use this to bother Evie.

His first visit after that one, however, is to Arno. Not Evie. Jacob spends about five seconds considering whether he should save this new trick for Evie or try it with Arno now, and comes to the conclusion that really there's no reason to wait. Arno takes a little bit more convincing, because after all it's his body Jacob wants to use. But he gives in, just like he always gives in when Jacob comes up with some fun new plan. He secretly loves it.

Which is how Jacob comes to be _inside_ Arno's body.

"Well?" Arno asks. Jacob looks over at him, and is more surprised than he should be that he's suddenly looking Arno straight in the eye. Because Arno is three inches taller and Jacob usually has to at least tilt his head up to look at him. He's short. It's just a thing, something he tries to pretend doesn't bother him as much as it actually does.

It's absurdly off-putting to not be the shortest guy in the room for once.

"How's it feel?" Arno asks, in the distinctive tone of someone that's had to ask this more than once to get Jacob's attention. It's one of Evie's top ten most used voices.

"Um…" he holds one of Arno's hands up in front of his face. It's the left one, the one with his hidden blade. Why is Arno's blade so much heavier than his? Shoddy craftsmanship, maybe, because Jacob has an entire rope launcher strapped to his arm and Arno's is still heavier. "You should get this looked at," he says. And _fuck_ , it's Arno's voice. That feels weird, that feels really weird.

"My arm?" Arno asks skeptically.

"Your blade," Jacob says, but he's already thinking about other things by the time Arno splutters out a protest that his blade is just fine thank you very much. The feeling of oddness is crawling down his arm from the extra weight on his wrist, it's worming into his insides from the voice that isn't his, radiating out from the extra three inches of height he's suddenly picked up. Voice changes, growth spurts—it's like being a teenager again.

But… different.

His whole life, Jacob has looked like Evie. It was clearer when they were children, because frankly all kids look like vaguely human shaped blobs until they get to a certain point. But they still look like what they are, which is siblings, which is twins, which is…connected. By something deeper than the kind of stuff Jacob usually likes to think about.

Now he looks like Arno, now he _is_ Arno, and it's kind of throwing Jacob for a loop. To be as close to someone else as he is with his sister, is that possible, is that something he wants? Except he doesn't really see Arno like a brother, but—

Maybe there's something there. Some connection. How can there not be, when Jacob is stretched out inside Arno's skin, when as far as the rest of the world is concerned, he _is_ Arno?

"You okay?" Arno asks, and Jacob hugs him. It's sort of an impulse, but it turns out to be worth it when Arno cringes self-consciously. "Jacob," he says. "Jacob! This hugging myself thing is weird, will you stop already?"

"Eh."

"I hate when you say that," Arno grumbles.

"You know you love me," Jacob says, tone flippant, his own smile stretching its way across Arno's face.

"Don't do that to my face!" Arno whines, and Jacob laughs at him before letting go and running off. Arno chases him, cursing, but in some ways (as Evie has told him before) Jacob is very much like a dog. Chase him, and his first instinct is to run faster. The run doesn't end until Jacob misjudges the difference between his body and Arno's and sends them tumbling off a building. Luckily it's not a very large building, but Arno demands his body back immediately and then refuses to speak to Jacob for the rest of the visit.


	38. Chapter 38

"No," Haytham says, looking down at his plate in disgust. "I'm not eating that."

"Father—" Connor sounds thoroughly embarrassed as he leans across the table to whisper to Haytham. "It's food. Just eat it."

"It's uncooked fish," Haytham says. "I _have_ actually heard of food poisoning, thank you."

"Father—"

"Salmonella--"

" _Father--_ "

"Do you want me to vomit all night?" Haytham asks. "Do you want that, Connor? Because if I wake up at midnight and spend the next several hours in the bathroom, we'll both know the fish is to blame."

"Fine," Connor says. "Then you can say _I told you so_ later tonight."

"You have no pity in you at all," Haytham says. He pokes at the thing on his plate with one of the sticks he's supposed to be eating it with. "And I still do not intend to eat this."

"It's called sushi," Connor says. "It's an actual food, father. I'm not trying to kill you with it."

"No," Haytham says. He knows before he says it that his next words will most likely cause a fight. But a fight would still be better than eating the supposedly edible uncooked fish. "You've already managed that once, haven't you?"

Connor's face stiffens sharply. They don't talk about that anymore. They've said everything there is to be said on the matter. They've both apologized. They've moved on. Except for when Haytham wants to win an argument, in which case he invariably brings it up. So far, it's worked every time.

This time, somehow, Connor only gets more stubborn. Possibly Haytham has overused this particular strategy. "Eat the fish," he says.

Haytham sighs, because really Connor is being absolutely unreasonable. Is he a child, to be told to eat everything on his plate? "What are we doing here, really?"

"We're doing Desmond a favor," Connor reminds him. Haytham winces. Damn. If this had been Connor's idea, he might have had a chance of getting out of here, fish still uneaten. But Desmond, for whatever reason, has been trying to push Haytham and Connor together for a while now. Maybe he sees the way they're drifting apart, with Haytham busy restarting the templars and Connor as adamantly on the side of the assassins as ever. Desmond had been the one to insist that they go out for lunch, but Connor had been the one to choose the place.

Haytham would never have let him, had he known what sushi was ahead of time.

But Desmond will ask how it went when they got home, and Haytham refusing to eat Connor's food would certainly reflect badly on him. "You really like this?" he asks, grudgingly picking up the little roll of fish and rice and seaweed. He does not use the stick things.

"They're good," Connor insists.

"Who told you about them?" Haytham asks.

"There's a restaurant I pass almost every day on my way to—" Connor catches himself, shakes his head. No doubt he'd been about to name one of the assassin safe houses or caches, and Haytham is oddly pleased to realize Connor had nearly let his guard down enough to name the place. Instead, he eats one of his sushi. "I decided to try it by myself. I was tired of only seeing the things in this century that other people wanted me to see. I wanted to show you something I'd found on my own."

"You—" Haytham looks at him, then at the fish. Why is this damn fish turning out to be so much more than just a fish? Apparently it's also a favor to Desmond and a genuinely touching gesture from Connor. But that doesn't make the fish any less raw, or unappealingly cold and slick between his fingers.

"Just try one," Connor says. "Please."

"Fine," Haytham says. He tries to hold his breath as the fish goes down, but frankly the idea of choking on this is slightly less appealing than tasting it.

"Did you like it?" Connor asks. He's watching Haytham like a hawk.

He swallows once or twice and tries to resist the urge to drink an entire glass of water. He really cannot understand why people would eat this willingly. Judging from the prices on the menu, though, not only do people enjoy eating this, but they will pay quite a lot for the dubious honor of doing so.

Connor's expectant look does not fade.

"Yes," Haytham says, and Connor smiles a fraction. "Yes, it was—better than expected."

He reaches for a second piece, his stomach twisting in protest, and pops it into his mouth. Connor nods, and his smile gets bigger.


	39. Chapter 39

Matthew is asleep in his room, and Elena hasn't been able to bring herself to wake him yet. Part of it is just his face, looking so careworn and exhausted that she assumes he hasn't slept well in a while. But part of it is… Is something else. Something in her that she doesn't know if she entirely wants.

This is how she felt for Darim, once. In the early-early days of being a teenager, when her visitors were a heady secret, a special something that set her apart from the people around her. At thirteen, Elena had fallen for the same insecurities as every other girl her age. She'd worried about being liked, about her weight, about pimples on her forehead and whether her clothes were right. She attended school (or  _ schools _ , really, different ones under different names when they moved around to stay hidden), which sometimes made things better and sometimes made things worse. Having a secret like her visitors, people she knew she could trust no matter what, people that didn't make her worry about looking or feeling stupid.

So maybe it was only natural that she would fall for one of them. And Darim was there, he was the one that grew up the fastest, he was the first one to decide that kissing girls was fun instead of gross. Falling into a relationship with him had been the easiest part of a hard year, and Elena doesn't regret it. When a couple years had gone by and they were a little (just a little) more mature, she realized they were never going to last, they weren't…  _ right _ , in some way she couldn't name. So she'd ended it, but she doesn't regret it.

Looking at Matthew is starting to make her feel all flipped around inside, the way looking at Darim had once. But it's… it's Matthew.  _ Matthew _ , for God's sake. She'd decided she was done dating visitors after Darim, but here she is, trying not to look at Matthew because just looking is messing her up. How long has this been going on? She knows… she knows that seeing Matthew makes her happy, that she loves spending time with him, that he makes her laugh, and that he's the one she wants to see when she's had a bad day. How long has all that feeling been mixing together inside her, for her to just look at him tonight and… and  _ know _ ?

It must be almost morning. Elena can hear the sound of the city waking up outside, and Matthew's uncle clattering around downstairs, getting ready for a long day of… whatever shoemakers do. Cobbling? Elena has no idea, and it would have been generous to describe Matthew's interest in the subject as 'nonexistent'. She sighs and looks down at Matthew. He looks so unhappy here, away from his parents and sister, stuck learning a trade he hates from a man that's taken him in out of obligation.

"I want you to be happy," Elena says. Her voice is steadier and more matter of fact than she expects it to be. Maybe it's because Matthew can't hear her. If he could… well, she wouldn't be saying this out loud, would she? "I… want you to do something with your life that you love. Not this. And I don't know what it is… I mean, I want all of us to be happy, all the visitors. I want someone to rescue Jenny, I want Marcello to find a giant building full of books and someone that will like it when he jumps on them and fake assassinates them." She shrugs. "But I want you to be happy because that would… that would make me happy. And I don't really know… why you, you know? I mean, if we're just going by physical appearance, Darim definitely has you beat. His face is nicer, and his  _ arms _ …" she trails off thoughtfully. "But you're you, I guess. And that's better."

Her visit ends before Matthew wakes up, and she goes wandering downstairs from her own room to find her father. "This is all your fault," she informs him peevishly. "If my life was normal, I'd be falling in love with the cute guy from the French class in my last school."

Her father looks mildly alarmed, probably in response to the words 'in love with.' "Instead of…?"

"Matthew," she says glumly.

Her father considers this. "You could always just not date anyone," he says hopefully. "You can just be my little girl forever."

Elena smiles a little. "Dad," she says fondly. "That's not how it works."

"Well then… if you want to hear my opinion, I think you should sound happier if you're really falling in love. You sound like someone's just given you a death sentence."

"I'd be happy if he was here," Elena says. "Do you know how hard it is to be in love with someone that's been dead for centuries? I did that once, and I… didn't want to do it again." She frowns at him. "Dad… I need you to make everything better."

The rib crushing hug he gives her doesn't exactly make  _ everything  _ better, but it helps.


	40. Chapter 40

Haytham looks up and smooths his face into a blank mask when he sees who his visitor is. Evie Frye. One of the most closed minded assassins he's ever met, easily—at least in this timeline. Before she'd forgotten a whole chunk of her life, Evie had struck Haytham as a level headed and sympathetic woman. She is decidedly less friendly now.

Evie looks at him—she seems to be considering saying something, but for whatever reason decides against it.

"There's no one else here, you know," Haytham says. "I realize you would prefer to visit with an assassin, but they're away on a mission somewhere at the moment."

"Where?" Evie asks.

"I've no idea," Haytham says. "It's sensitive, apparently. We're a family, but there are still some aspects of our lives it's easier to keep separate. Shay and I don't know everything they do as assassins, and we certainly don't tell them everything we do as templars."

"Don't you trust one another?" Evie asks.

Haytham smiles. It seems to unnerve Evie. "I trust them to be very good at what they do," he says. "Which means that if Shay and I ever want to get anything done, we have to keep secrets. And... occasionally stay home babysitting while everyone else is away."

The door opens and Elena runs in. "Grandpa!" she whines, climbing immediately onto Haytham's lap. "When is daddy coming home?"

"Soon," Haytham says.

" _Now_ ," Elena whines. "Grandpa…"

"He'll come home when he finishes his work," Haytham says.

"Is he going to see Evie like last time he went away?" Elena asks, and Haytham watches Evie jolt a little on hearing her name.

"No," Haytham says. "She's visiting me right now."

"Oh!" Elena waves in all directions, giggling. "Hi, Evie!"

"You've told her about visiting?" Evie asks.

"She has her own visitors," Haytham says. "She didn't need to be told."

"Jenny's visiting now," Elena announces. "She's supposed to be in bed 'cuz it's past her bedtime, but she came to see me instead!"

"You're supposed to be in bed too," Haytham reminds her, and Elena pouts.

"Can I stay up late?" she says. "Please, grandpa? _Please_?"

He gets caught up with talking to her, bargaining her first into bed, then under the covers. For a while, he actually forgets Evie is there. Elena makes him promise not to leave until she's asleep (and then she makes him move when he drifts too close, so Jenny will have room to sleep next to her). Haytham's arm shakes a little as he stretches it across the empty space where his sister lies sleeping. Not for the first time, he wishes he could at least see Elena's visitors. Then he rests his hand on Elena's back, rubbing gently until she uncurls.

She's stiff at the beginning, because Desmond isn't here and she's scared and worried without him. But she trusts Haytham too, and his gently rubbing hand is enough to eventually lull her into near-sleep. Elena spreads out in the bed, going from curled up tight to lying flat across half the bed like a melting puddle.

"Sing me, grandpa?" she mumbles. "Sing me?"

Haytham looks up, remembering Evie at last. She's watched the whole scene play out in silence, trailing along behind Haytham, but he's not sure she'll be able to keep herself from laughing or worse if he sings Elena to sleep. He's not much of a singer.

"Sing…" Elena says, and then she makes a sad little noise like a dying bird, so Haytham sings to her. It's been… a very long time since anyone sang to him. His mother used to, but Haytham doesn't remember all the words to their song anymore. She'd stopped... oh, long before his father died, even. He doesn't remember how it goes, anymore--

Evie does. Haytham stumbles at the end of the first verse, and Elena's eyes slide back open, her mouth opens like she's about to protest—and then Evie starts singing, picking up from the place Haytham had forgotten. He nods and echoes her, and by the time the song is over, Elena is fast asleep.

"Thank you," Haytham says. Quietly, so as not to wake Elena. He extricates himself from the bed, hoping Jenny is asleep too.

"My grandmother used to sing that to me and Jacob," she explains. She is whispering, although they both know she could safely shout without waking Elena.

"My mother sang it to me," Haytham says. He steps through the door and closes it softly behind them. "But that was a long time ago. Thank you for your help."

"You're welcome, Mr. Kenway," Evie says.

They look at one another, then both speak at once.

"You don't have to—" Haytham starts.

"I think we might have—" Evie cuts herself off.

For a moment, the silence between them is horrible."You first," Haytham says.

Evie takes a breath. "I think we might have gotten off on the wrong foot," she says. "Desmond trusts you. I should give you the benefit of the doubt."

"I was just about to say that you are allowed to use my given name, if you want," Haytham says.

"Thank you," Evie says. "I—will try to be more civil in the future, Haystack."

She realizes what she's said as soon as it slips out, and her face turns bright red as Haytham laughs.

"I am—" Haytham doesn't think he's ever seen her flustered before. "I am very sorry," Evie says, not quite meeting his eyes. "I should not have said that."

"Your brother has called me that before," Haytham says, without any concern whatsoever. "And worse."

"I have no idea where he comes up with these names," Evie groans. Her embarrassment is fading a bit now, although she still looks mildly guilty.

"He is a strange man," Haytham says, cautiously. He half expects Evie to shout at him for insulting her brother. And maybe she wants to, but then her expression relaxes into a smile. Haytham thinks there might be some hope for their relationship after all. It's taken Evie a while to warm up, certainly, but they might still end up friends.

"I know," she says. "Jacob is very, _very_ strange."

"He reminds me a bit of my father," Haytham says sadly, and the rest of Evie's visit passes quickly, comparing Jacob and Edward's escapades. At the end of her visit, Evie almost smiles at him.

"Thank you, Haytham," she says, with extra emphasis on his name. And then she disappears.


	41. Chapter 41

"Hey."

Desmond isn't sure he wants to be here, because he doesn't really want to fight. But he feels like he's drowning, and if there's anyone he should be able to talk to about all this, it's his dad. Because—that's what dads are for, right? That’s what… they're supposed to be there for you, no matter what.

So far, Desmond hasn't had any reason to test that. He and Haytham haven't seriously disagreed about anything since everyone came back. Some little things of course, the kind of unavoidable disagreements that happen in any group of people. And there's the whole assassin/templar thing but frankly that's old news by now.

Evie is different. In a lot of ways, but mostly because she is the first reason Desmond and Haytham have really had to fight. Haytham has been firmly set on the idea of Evie marrying Henry from the beginning, and Desmond obviously had not been. Now that he knows… now that _Evie_ knows everything she's forgotten, it doesn't look like Desmond really has a chance of being with her.

Hopefully Haytham won't hold Desmond's feelings against him, because Desmond really needs to be comforted right now.

Haytham looks up at him and frowns at once—Desmond winces. He must really look a mess. "What's wrong?" Haytham asks.

"Evie." His voice cracks, and Desmond stares hard at his shoes. "I keep trying to tell myself that maybe things can still work out. Because I love her and she loves me and—that's supposed to be what matters. But she loves Henry too, she has memories of _marrying_ Henry, and he lives in the same time as her and… and he doesn't lose his temper and shout at her." More than anything, he can't forgive himself for the way he'd acted when he first found out about Evie remembering. He shouldn't have shouted, it wasn't her fault—blaming her for something she hadn't done on purpose is something William Miles would do. Desmond doesn't want to be like that. He doesn't deserve her…

"We didn't fight before she got her memories back," Desmond says, after thirty seconds or so of labored breathing as he tries to stop the tears threatening to burst out of him. "We didn't really officially break up, there's no closure. It's just over. And I'll have to keep visiting her for the rest of my life."

"Desmond…"

"Sorry, that came out wrong. It's not _have to_. I'm happy to see her, even if we're not together, even if she hates me for being angry, I just, I miss her, I want her in my life, I—" Words. Words, falling out of him, muffled by the tears that suddenly won't stop. It's so abrupt, it's just like one second he's struggling but still managing to hold them back, and then suddenly his whole face is wet. "I miss waking up kn—knowing she loved me. I miss knowing she was there, even if I never got to see her enough…"

He curls into himself and Haytham steps forward. Desmond whimpers as Haytham hugs him tightly. "It's not fair," Haytham says softly. "I know."

He does, Desmond thinks vaguely. It's been a long time since Haytham's feelings for Ziio faded from his mind, vanished along with the rest of the bleeding effect. But he remembers the pain. Remembers reliving their time together in the animus, over and over again. "It's not the same," he says. "Not exactly."

"I don't think any two people feel pain the same way," Haytham says. "We're all… alone. The things in our heads are private, they cannot be understood by anyone on the outside." He holds Desmond tighter. "But they can be shared, and I am here for you any time you need me. You know I never thought you should be with Evie. But that does not stop me from wishing it could have worked. And I am so, _so_ sorry you're in pain. I wish I could make it hurt less, but I think that would be worse. The pain is hard, but it's another part of the love you feel. You wouldn't hurt like this if you hadn't really, genuinely loved Evie."

"Love," Desmond corrects. "Not loved."

He shudders in Haytham's arms—every time he tries to compose himself and step away, the crying just starts all over again. "Does it ever stop?" he asks. "With Ziio, did you ever stop loving her?"

"No," Haytham says. "I'm more used to the pain now. Having Connor around helps, although I would appreciate it if you didn't repeat that to him. But if I could find a way to bring Ziio back to me, if she just defied death and time and space, and walked into this safe house today—I would love her as much as I did the last time we saw one another."

"Do you think you'll ever love again?" Desmond asks. Easier to think of Haytham and Ziio than himself and Evie. "Or was Ziio it, for you?"

Haytham hesitates, for a long time. When he speaks again, it's in a barely audible whisper. "I did love again," he says. "I do. Don't ask me who, because it's as impossible a love as you and Evie. But new love is possible, and it does nothing to diminish the old love."

In any other situation, Desmond would have pressed anyway. Now all he wants is the reassurance that this doesn't have to be the end. That whatever it is in him that lets him love and be loved has not been irreversibly broken. Right now, he can't imagine falling in love with any woman in the world but Evie Frye. But the idea of a lifetime without any of that kind of love in his life is—

He never knew what it was to love and be loved like this until Evie. Now he feels like he's dying without it.

"Remember there are other kinds of love," Haytham says. "I love you. Elena _adores_ you. All of our visitors love you, too."

Evie is a visitor.

"I know," Desmond says. But somehow, it doesn't help.


	42. Chapter 42

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set after [this](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5891452/chapters/13853659).

Jacob has to wait a long time to get Ezio on his own. He's never been good at waiting, and this is particularly hard. Roth's assassination had—woken something in Jacob that he sort of wants to put back to sleep. Maybe, if his kiss with Arno had gone better, if those first few seconds of… whatever had lasted, things would be different. Because in those seconds when Arno kissed him back, Jacob had thought that this waking up wouldn't be so bad if Arno was awake too.  
  
Instead, Jacob feels like the only living man in a world full of dreamers. The kiss Roth had stolen from him had made something in Jacob go crazy. Kissing Arno had made him go insane. He can't figure out what he's feeling, and he… he needs time. He needs more than Roth's dying breath and Arno's half second of desperate distraction.  
  
But the things he wants are illegal in this time, and while legality has never been a particular concern of Jacob's, there are other things to worry about. He's supposed to be leader of the Rooks. What will they think if Jacob starts kissing men? Will they respect him less, or refuse to follow him at all? What about Evie? She's wallowing in her own misery (because apparently, being in love with two men that also love her is a problem. Jacob wishes he had that problem. Jacob is in love with two men that will never love him), but she still might be able to spare enough disapproval for this.  
  
Eventually, he thinks of Ezio.  
  
The man will and does flirt with literally anyone. Jacob had noticed it ages ago, but until recently he'd just thought it was funny. Now he's wondering, because maybe Ezio's flirting isn't just a joke. Jacob knows for a fact that he watches Altair in the shower, which… is not something a man would do if he wasn't at least sort of interested in other men, is it?  
  
He could at least talk to Ezio. Play it off as a joke, maybe. As long as Arno hasn't told anyone about the kiss, and Jacob is desperately hoping that he hasn't. Even if Arno—if he hadn't been able to reciprocate, he hopes there's enough respect between the two of them that Arno wouldn't go around running his mouth off about what happens in private between them.  
  
Going to Ezio should be safe. Probably. Hopefully.  
  
But it's easier said than done. Every time Jacob goes to the future, he's either visiting someone else, or he can't get Ezio on his own. Ezio's playful flirting is almost unbearable now that Jacob has made up his mind to talk to him. The one day Jacob finds himself visiting Ezio at the same time as Arno, he pretends to have a headache, and goes to sit in the next room with his head in his hands until his visit ends.  
  
But finally, finally, Jacob visits an Ezio that's alone in the safehouse, sorting supplies while the others are out doing something Jacob doesn't really care about. "Jacob!" Ezio calls, throwing a clipboard aside. His eyes do a sweep up and down Jacob's body, a flick of the eyes that seems almost instinctual. Jacob used to think it was funny, but now the brief look of appreciation on Ezio's face does something to Jacob, makes his mind go in directions he wouldn't have dreamed of six months ago.  
  
"Can we—" Talk. He wants to say talk, because Jacob doesn't understand what's happening to him and Ezio might get it. But his stupid mouth doesn't say talk, it says "kiss?" in a voice that shakes and goes high, makes Jacob feel like he's thirteen years old again, hiding up a tree with Susie Hill and trying to talk her out of her skirts before his father finds them.  
  
Ezio laughs. Jacob's face burns.  
  
"I don't know why I said that," he mutters. "I didn't mean it, just forget I—"  
  
Ezio catches Jacob by the elbow as he starts to turn away, and there is a sympathy on his face that Jacob does not want. "What's wrong?" he asks.  
  
"Nothing's wrong with me—"  
  
"Jacob."  
  
He stares at the ground. "Nothing's wrong with me," Jacob says again, fiercely. He's not sure if he's trying to convince himself or Ezio.  
  
"Hey, Jacob. I didn't say anything was wrong with you. I just think you look worried."  
  
He is. He's so worried, and he's confused, he's sick with feelings he isn't used to and shouldn't have. "No."  
  
"Sit down," Ezio says, and he drags Jacob to the ground with him so that they're both sitting cross legged on the ground, facing each other. Jacob can't stop fidgeting, which—alright, is normal for him, but this time it's out of nerves rather than boredom. Ezio waits, and he is better at waiting than Jacob, because long before Ezio looks like he's ready to give up, Jacob bursts out—  
  
"One of my targets kissed me."  
  
"A man," Ezio guesses.  
  
"A man," Jacob agrees. "And he was—he deserved to die, but I can't get him out of my head. I dream about him, I dream about—" Don't mention Arno, don't throw him into this mess. "About the kiss. I don't know what I'm feeling but I can't keep going until I finish it. Because it wasn't enough. I wanted… more. And I wondered if all your flirting, is it… are you just messing around, or—do you…?"  
  
"I slept with Edward once," Ezio says contemplatively. "Clearly my standards aren't as high as they should be."  
  
"Arr—ah?" Words abandon Jacob for the moment. This is not a mental image he particularly wants.  
  
"I would sleep with you," Ezio says. "You're attractive—I think it has something to do with visiting. Have you noticed? We're all absurdly attractive people. It's a real hardship, sometimes."  
  
"You'd sleep with me?" Jacob echoes. He hadn't got that far, even in his head. He's still stuck at kissing.  
  
"We can start slowly, if you like," Ezio says, and Jacob doesn't know what to say to that. It doesn't matter, because Ezio is flatteringly eager to lean across the space between them and kiss Jacob. His lips work against Jacob's, and Jacob shifts from sitting cross legged to kneeling, leaning forward, eager—he puts one hand on Ezio's shoulder and Ezio wraps his arm around Jacob's waist.  
  
They overbalance but Jacob's world has shrunk to the size of himself and Ezio and the warm points on his skin where they touch. His brain is all fireworks because yes, yes. It is such a relief to finally be able to do this, after weeks of wondering what is happening to him. Maybe he doesn't understand it, but he's finally at a place where understanding doesn't matter. All that matters is the feeling.  
  
He lands on Ezio and Ezio rolls over with a grunt, pinning Jacob down and leaning down to press his lips to Jacob's mouth, his neck, his face—  
  
Jacob laughs aloud and strains against Ezio's hold—the other man lifts his face just out of reach (and Jacob is sure he must be doing this on purpose) so Jacob turns his head and kisses his arm, his hand…  
  
It is only when Ezio's hand starts to stray below Jacob's waist that he shakes his head. "No," he says. "I'm not ready for that yet." Or maybe he just doesn't want to go there with Ezio—maybe he keeps thinking about what this would be like with Arno (who won't kiss him, he never will because everything in him belongs to Elise, who is dead).  
  
Either way, Ezio drops down next to Jacob, and for a moment they just lie side by side. Jacob is beaming. He feels enormously accomplished, he feels amazingly relieved to have kissed a man without anyone dying, to be able to pull away on his own terms, to know that yes, actually, this is something in him that isn't going away and isn't really all that bad.  
  
"Thank you," Jacob says.  
  
Ezio waves him away. "That was fun," he says.  
  
"It was," Jacob says. Ezio has obviously done this before. But a thought occurs to him, and he turns slightly to look at Ezio. "But that's all it was, right? I don't need anything complicated. It's bad enough at home with my sister pining after Dessie."  
  
"New nickname?" Ezio asks.  
  
"I'm trying it out, yea."  
  
"Mmm," Ezio says. "Maybe keep trying."  
  
Jacob laughs, he laughs and laughs, because the new things in his head are just starting to slide into place, his mind almost feels like his own again. It's all going to be okay.


	43. Chapter 43

"Connor!"

Someone has shaken him awake, and Connor does not want to be awake. The fact that he vaguely recognizes Edward's voice through the sleepy fog filling his head makes waking seem somehow even less attractive.

"Connor, I stole a ship!"

…he's going to have to wake up and deal with this, isn't he?

"Edward…"

"Don't you want to see my ship?" Edward whines. "I mean, it's not much of a ship, it's a yacht, it doesn't even have _weapons_ , but it's something and I figure hey, it's as good a place to start as any."

Connor sits up, rubbing at his face. He'd been up at the crack of dawn this morning, spent the entire day actually _working_ , and he'd really been looking forward to sleeping. "Why did you steal a yacht?" he asks. "Couldn't you have just…" his mind is blank, he can't think of any alternatives. "…not stolen it?"

Edward looks weirdly hurt. "Don't you miss sailing?" he asks. "Don't you miss the sea?"

"I suppose," Connor says. "There are other things I miss more."

Edward looks at him, shaking his head slowly as if Connor has failed him in some fundamental way. Then he springs up and runs out of the room. Connor can hear him calling for Shay.

"No!" Connor hisses, leaping out of bed and diving after his grandfather. Edward is standing at Shay and Aveline's door, hand raised to knock, when Connor catches him around the middle with both hands and _throws_ him away from the door.

"Is it hug time?" Edward asks, delighted. He doesn't wait for an answer before hugging Connor, and Connor, for his part, immediately ducks out of the grip.

"What are you doing?" Connor asks.

"Well, you weren't very interested," Edward says. "I thought maybe Shay would be more reasonable."

Reasonable. Yes. Because clearly reason is playing a large part in what is going on here tonight.

"It's Aveline's birthday," Connor says. "Do you really want to know how they're celebrating in there?"

He looks like he does. Because it's Edward, and of course he does. Connor can see him start edging toward the door, taking tiny, tiny steps like he thinks Connor won't notice.

Really?

"Alright," Connor sighs. "Fine. "Let's go see your ship."

Edward cheers—silently, when Connor makes frantic shushing motions—and dashes from the room.

Perfect. Absolutely perfect. Connor stifles a yawn and follows him.

-//-

The yacht is… nice. Simpler than Connor would have expected, given that Edward had been the one to steal it. Cleaner, too, although he supposes that might not last long. "Where'd you steal this from?" he asks, dropping into a chair as Edward fusses around the steering.

"It was repossessed," Edward says dismissively. "Not like I took it from the original owner."

"Mmm."

Connor is really tired, and his eyes keep closing. Edward goes mercifully silent as he focuses on the ship, and on gradually steering them out to sea. Hopefully he won't go out too far, Connor thinks blearily, this isn't exactly the kind of ship either of them is used to sailing. He half opens his mouth, planning to say something, but then he closes it again.

In moments, the gentle whirr of the motor and the familiar lapping of the water around them lulls him back to sleep.

When he wakes again, the ship is still and there's something lying on top of Connor. A blanket. He pulls it close around himself and sits up, looking for Edward. The other man is several feet away, staring out at the moon and the sea.

Connor stands and walks to his grandfather's side—Edward is fixated on the water, and barely acknowledges Connor's arrival.

"You really missed this," Connor says. "Didn't you?"

"Yea," Edward says. His voice is soft and low, absolutely sincere. "This is it for me, you know? This is where I'm supposed to be."

"You're supposed to be with us."

"And that's where my heart is," Edward says at once. Maybe anytime, anywhere else, it would have sounded cliché. Something from a bad romance. But standing here on this stolen ship, watching the moon over the water, it seems to fit. "Always, you know that. But I think I need to go away for a while. I need to be at sea."

"We'll miss you," Connor says, after a moment.

"I'll come back," Edward says. "But I have to… go home first, I guess."

Connor half laughs, looking at the water rather than at Edward. "You should have been born a fish," he says.

"I used to tell your father I was a merman," Edward says, like this is a perfectly normal thing to tell one's son. "And I came onto land to have him. He loved that story, when he was about three or four…"

They trail off into silence again. Time passes, and Connor realizes he has no idea what time it is. He's gotten used to the way the people of these centuries keep their constant, obsessive watch over time. It's almost a relief not to have to know the exact time, down to the exact second, the exact _millisecond_ , sometimes. It's night. Connor doesn't need to know the time any more specifically than that.

After a while, Connor nudges at Edward. "You're planning to take me home before you go on this adventure of yours, aren't you?"

Edward laughs and nods. "If you insist," he says. "Not that I wouldn't like having you along."

Connor shrugs. "I'd rather be on land," he says. "I don't mind the sea, but I don't need to be here all the time."

"Fair enough," Edward says. "And I suppose someone needs to tell the others where I'm going."

"Will you be alright on your own?" Connor asks. He knows Edward goes crazy when he's left without someone to talk to for a single hour, he can't imagine how a long journey like the one Edward's planning now will work for him.

"Oh, I won't be on my own," Edward says. "I've been tracking down some of the assassins in this time. Mostly looking for the assassins that piss off William Miles, because that seems like a solid quality for a crew. They're waiting a ways up the coast. I'll pick them up and…" he shrugs, grins. "We'll cause some chaos, I guess. Bother some of Abstergo's men. Maybe steal a bigger ship. I don't know. We'll see."

"I guess we will," Connor says. He smiles to himself as Edward gets the ship moving back toward shore, because… well, this will certainly be interesting.


	44. Chapter 44

His sister is tiny and perfect, skin pink and smooth, eyes drifting closed from the exhaustion of  _ being born.  _ Jacob stands stiff and invisible beside his father (even now, years after the man’s death, when it's nothing but a visit, Jacob can't quite relax). And he looks down at Evie, cradled in their father’s arms, and tries not to listen to their mother’s screaming. Tries not to think that he will never hear her voice again. Sad thoughts come easily these days, though--in his own time, Jacob is a prisoner of Jack the Ripper. He's being held in a dark hole, he's been beaten to within an inch of his life, he's waiting to die. Even during this visit, to the time of his own birth, he can't quite drag his mind out of that hole.

"Oh  _ God _ ," his mother says, and she sounds exhausted, she sounds like she is in indescribable pain. "God, why won't it end?"

"The hard part's over now," a second woman says. Jacob doesn't know her—a midwife? He can't imagine his father assisting in a birth. As a matter of fact he's surprised to see the man here at all.

"Then why does it still  _ hurt _ ?" Jacob's mother demands, and he can't stop himself from looking up at her.

It is Jacob's first real look at his mother. She is damp with sweat and red faced—but she is so  _ familiar _ , so much like himself and Evie, that Jacob can't keep himself from crossing the few steps from his sister to his mother. He kneels beside her, and reaches uselessly for her hand before stopping short. How exactly would that work? He's only visiting Evie, he's not  _ really  _ here.

Well, not yet.

"There's another one," the midwife says, and she sounds absolutely shocked by the whole idea (she can't be a very  _ good  _ midwife, Jacob thinks, if twins are such a foreign concept to her).

"No," his mother moans. "No, I can't—not again."

"Push," the midwife snaps.

"This child will kill me!" Jacob's mother screams, and it's like a knife through him when he hears it.

The midwife shouts over her, calling orders that Jacob's father follows with uncharacteristic quickness. He puts Evie down, carefully but immediately, in the little basket waiting for her, and runs to follow the midwife's instructions. Evie starts to cry, shrieking at the top of her lungs, and for once in his life Jacob is the only quiet one in his family.

Jacob waits and watches as his mother gives birth to him. As blood pours from her, as she goes pale and weak. As she dies.

In the end, there is silence in the room. The midwife has packed up her things and left, murmuring soft condolences. Jacob's mother is dead, never to speak again. His father seems stunned and lost as he studies his wife's body. For a man that makes his living by the death of others, he seems curiously unprepared to deal with his wife's body.

Jacob turns to look at himself and Evie, snugly curled in a basket that was only ever meant to hold one. Both infants are asleep, wrapped around each other as they must have been in the womb, unconcerned by the corpse of their mother nearby, or the stench of blood around them. Why should they care? They have each other, and for nine months there has been nothing and no one else in their world.

Evie stretches herself and yawns, eyes blinking fuzzily open. She whimpers, and Jacob moves close to her. He feels numb and hollowed out, but when he rubs his coarse fingers over her tiny hand, she grabs at his finger and holds it as tight as she can. It's not very tightly at all, really, but it makes Jacob feel better, at least for as long as his visit lasts.

When it's over, when he's back in the pit of a cell where Jack is holding him, Jacob leans his head back against the wall and broods on the family he's lost. Of his long dead parents, of Evie far away in India with Henry. He'd written to her, before Jack caught up with him. Will she come? Does he want her to? He can't see any other way away from Jack, but just now he can't see any way for  _ her  _ to take him on, either. Jack has had Jacob prisoner for so long now that it's… all he knows. Pain, darkness, illness…

Fear.

"Don't come, Evie," he whispers. But his throat is so dry that not a sound escapes. "Stay away."

When Jack comes, later, to taunt and torture him, Jacob is dully surprised to find that nothing he says or does hurts as much as the visit he's just had.


	45. Chapter 45

"Jacob, perfect! Just who we needed."

He accepts the praise, as well as the enthusiastic pat on the back—he has no idea what's going on or why he's needed, but he'll take this at face value. "Edward!" he says, turning toward the voice. "What's going on?"

"We're going to break some things," Edward says, and when he gestures vaguely across Jacob's shoulder, Jacob turns and realizes Ezio is standing on his other side.

"What are we breaking?" Jacob asks.

"Stuff," Edward says.

"Okay," Jacob says. "Works for me."

"A precursor relic," Ezio says.

Jacob makes a face. The last time he'd seen Evie had been an hour or so ago, when he'd left her crying in her bed. The crying thing has become an almost daily occurrence since the shroud gave her all her missing memories back, and that had been a _while_ ago. In that time, Jacob has been able to have a crisis of his own, although thankfully he'd been able to resolve his with a weirdly fun kiss with Ezio. Evie seems to be struggling more—before the whole shroud thing, for example, the last time Jacob remembers his sister crying, they'd been ten. She'd been sick and stuck in bed and frustrated that she couldn't go outside with him for climbing practice. She hadn't even been sad, she'd been _frustrated_.

She's sad now. She's making Jacob think that maybe broken hearts are a thing that can actually happen to people in real life, and not just characters in melodramas. "I don't like that stuff," he says. "I don't really know if I want anything to do with it."

"No, no," Edward says. "It's okay. We're _breaking_ it."

"Well…" he glances from one to the other. "I guess that seems okay. Why, though?"

"It's that thing that almost killed Desmond," Ezio explains. "It's called an Eye—not only did it _not_ kill him, it brought the rest of us here when we should have been dead. Altair had this idea that if we pass on some of the Eye to you and the rest of the new visitors, you'll be able to come to the future after you die, too."

Jacob stops dead in his tracks, although his dramatic gesture really only works for a few seconds—Ezio and Edward both keep moving, and whichever one he's visiting drags him along after them. He hurries to catch up. "Do you really think that would work?" he asks.

"Sure," Ezio says. "Altair said it would."

"If Altair said pigs could fly, you'd believe it," Edward says.

"You don't think it'll work?" Jacob asks him.

Edward shrugs. "I guess it makes sense," he says. "But there's no way to know until one of you actually dies. See, we're going to break the Eye into little shard pieces now, and bring them home to Desmond to pass onto the rest of you when you get close to dying."

"Why Desmond?"

"Because he can actually move things from one time to another," Ezio says. "None of us has any idea why, but it's convenient."

Jacob shrugs. "Well, tell him to get one to me first," he says. "Because I'm pretty sure I'm going to do something stupid and get myself killed soonest."

Both of them laugh at this, which is nice even if Jacob had actually been serious about that. He does a _lot_ of things that turn out to be not such great ideas once he's actually tried them. "Here," Ezio says, and Jacob realizes they've come to a cave. Both Edward and Ezio seem somber suddenly, and as Jacob follows them down, he feels himself getting tense.

"What's wrong?" he asks. "Is it just weird because Desmond almost died here?"

"Sort of," Edward says. "But I mean—the whole time I was visiting him, Desmond was here. I think I only visited him outside this cave once or twice, and… you never knew him when he was bleeding, Jacob. It was really hard to watch him go through that."

It must have been, to make Edward so somber. Jacob trails a step or two behind them, feeling uncomfortably out of place as they point out different spots within the temple. Most of them seem to be tied to various stages of Desmond's insanity. Jacob wonders briefly if Evie knows all this about Desmond—had he told her there were times he didn't know his own name? Does she know he'd made out with Edward to shock himself back into being _Desmond_? Would it make a difference to her?

Edward and Ezio eventually lead Jacob into a room in the far back of the temple, where a glowing sphere thing rests on a pedestal. For a moment, both of them are silent. Jacob expects more memories, but neither of them speaks. Edward mutters something, and Ezio bows his head, as if in memorial.

"You know he's not actually dead, don't you?" Jacob asks.

"You weren't there," Edward says.

"You didn't feel it."

Jacob sighs and hits the thing—it rings like a gong and kind of hurts. "Come on!" he says, slapping Edward on the back and giving Ezio a little poke. "Let's break the damn thing!"

Ezio and Edward look at each other, and they seem to snap out of whatever funk this place has sent them into. "Sounds like a plan," Edward says. "Can we have the guns now, Ezio?"

"Well—"

"We brought _really_ big guns," Edward says, turning back to Jacob, even as Ezio pulls off his backpack and pulls out what do indeed look like really big guns. There's a whole selection of them there, enough for even Jacob to get one. So that's exciting. "But Haytham says I wasn't supposed to carry them until we got here."

"Because you would have absolutely set them off on the way here," Ezio says. "Possibly on purpose."

They bicker, but in the end all three of them have guns in their hands that make the pistol in Jacob's holster look like a slingshot. "Ready?" Edward asks.

" _Yes_ ," Jacob says. Then—"Actually no, sorry, I have no idea how to use this thing."

So then there's a brief pause while Ezio explains the mechanisms to Jacob (it's a little more complicated than point and pull the trigger), and Edward waves his own gun around a little too enthusiastically. Finally, Jacob thinks he has the general picture, and the three of them turn back to the Eye.

Ezio counts them down. "Three, two… one."

All three of them fire at once, and Edward whoops aloud at the fiery destruction that follows. There's a boom, something like an explosion, and then Ezio very quickly takes Edward's gun away as he starts jumping around.

Jacob hands his back too, shaking his head a little to get the ringing out of his ears. "Did it work?" he asks, and Edward runs over to check.

"Oh!" he says.

"Oh?" Ezio asks.

"Come here!"

Jacob comes first, because Ezio is focused on putting the guns away safely. He grins at the sight of the Eye in pieces on the floor. Most of it is a fine dust, but there are maybe a dozen larger shards. "It _did_ work," he says, picking up the nearest one. It glitters oddly in his hand, throwing off light in a way that isn't quite the same as normal glass.

"That was _awesome_ ," Edward says appreciatively. "We should do this more often."

"Next time we need a piece of Eden destroyed, definitely," Ezio agrees.

"It was a blast," Jacob says, and then they spend the rest of his visit cheerfully reenacting the explosion over and over again, exaggerating the size of the explosion to one another each time they repeat the story, and arguing over whose gun had been most to blame for the fireball.

-//-

A week after that, Desmond comes to visit Jacob, and passes a shard. "I heard you think you're the most likely of the new visitors to die young," he says.

"Well, don't you?" Jacob asks.

"Probably." He sounds tired and worried. "Just don't be reckless, alright? We don't know for sure if this will work."

"I won't be any more reckless than I would have been without the shard," Jacob promises.

Desmond rolls his eyes. "Fine. Good enough."

"What about Evie?" Jacob asks. "Does she get one?"

Desmond flinches, and the worry on his face gets deeper. Jacob wonders if he's been crying as much as Evie has lately. "Well, we usually get to visit each other before one of us dies," he says, after a moment's pause to recover. "I can pass them on then. But if you're planning to fall off a building or hit your head or something—you should have yours now."

"I'm not _planning_ on it," Jacob says. "But it might happen."

Desmond nods and vanishes as his visit ends. A moment later Evie comes in, looking equal parts hopeful and concerned. "Did I hear voices?" she asks.

Jacob tucks the shard away. "No," he says. "Just me."


	46. Chapter 46

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is set after [Invisitable Chapter 9](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5892196/chapters/13966381).

It's not that Darim's life is not a happy one. He has a father and mother that love him, a little brother that drives him crazy (but maybe isn't all that bad), and visitors that understand him better than Darim has any right to expect. One day, he knows he will have good and noble work to commit his life to. After he's finished his training, he'll be an assassin. There is no higher calling Darim can think of.

So his life is _happy_ , yes, but it is an almost somber kind of happiness, tied to words like _honor_ and _duty_. When Darim is home, he smiles but he very rarely laughs.

When he is with Rory, he laughs. Rory is going to be an assassin too, but his parents are crazy (in a good way) and his life is a little bit different from Darim's. Visiting Rory is a little like going on vacation, and Darim feels like he can breathe a little easier, like there's a little less weight sitting on his chest.

Part of it is just leaving home for a while, but part of it is being in love. Darim loves Rory, but he also loves just being in love. Elena, when they were together, used to tease him and say he's like the heroine in a romance novel. "You swoon," she'd said.

"I don't swoon," Darim had insisted, despite not being particularly sure what 'swooning' means. (He still doesn't, for that matter—is it just like a girly way of passing out?) But Elena had laughed and he'd known she'd just been teasing, and he hadn't really minded.

He misses the teasing, wishes they could go back to the casual friendship they'd once had, but apparently breaking up is one of those things that puts walls between people. Now things are so stiff and formal. Not that certain things hadn’t been stiff when they were together, but this is different. It—

"Hey," Rory calls. His voice is singsong and happy, like laughter made into words. Instantly, all other thoughts go rushing out of Darim's head, and his heart skips a beat. "Where's your head?"

"Right here," he says. "With the rest of me. With you." He grins and laughs. "Not that I have any idea where 'right here' is."

Rory laughs too, and gestures vaguely at the streets around them. "New Orleans," he says.

"Well I knew _that_ ," Darim says. "Where are we going?"

"I _was_ going to the warehouse," Rory says. "Philippe's trying to take over the coffee shipping business, and he decided he needed someone to come in and move stuff around, and apparently Jeanne and dad are _busy."_ He makes a face. "With templar stuff. And we all know the closest Tomas gets to helping is 'not getting in the way,' so that just leaves me."

"Sounds…" Dull.

"Well now you're here," Rory says, drifting closer to Darim and taking his hand. "So now I'm going to blow that off and spend the afternoon with you."

"But—" Rory is smiling at him, like he's the most important thing in the world, like it's worth ignoring his responsibilities and risking his mother's annoyance just to be with him. "Okay. What do you want to do instead?"

"Let me show you the city," Rory says, and that's exactly what they do. They wander from street to street, Rory playing tour guide. It's nice, but Darim keeps catching himself looking at Rory instead of the city around them.

They stop on a raised street overlooking the river, and Rory says, "This is my favorite place in the city."

"Really?" Darim looks around them, but can't see anything particularly special. It's pretty, but certainly not the prettiest place in the city, and anyway Rory never struck Darim as the kind of man that would like things just for being pretty. "Why?"

"Well—" Rory seems strangely nervous. "I have good memories of this place."

Darim gives him an odd look. "What do you mean? What memories?"

"Well, technically—" he shuffles his feet. "Technically I guess they're not memories. I haven't made them yet.'

"Rory, what are you _talking_ abo—"

Rory interrupts him by lunging forward and kissing him. It's their first kiss since the day they got together, which had been nice but also Rory had been crying and there was a dead cat between them which was a little uncomfortable. This one is still rough but there are no tears and no dead things, and Darim enjoys it immensely.

Rory breaks away first, panting and grinning lopsidedly. "These memories," he says. "These ones."

Darim stares at him for a second, then bursts out laughing. Rory's grin falters and fades. "Was I bad?" he asks. "I haven't really kissed that much before, I didn't know—"

"No!" Darim says, still laughing, "No, Rory, you're perfect. I've just never seen you try to be romantic like that before."

Rory glances sideways at the river, clearly pleased but also a bit embarrassed. "I've never had anyone to be romantic _with_ before," he says. "I talked to Elena, actually. I was… scared of disappointing you, and I thought she could give me some advice. She said you like flirting and romance and stuff."

"I do," Darim admits, and oh look, now his face is going warm and red as well. "But you don't have to go out of your way for me. I like you no matter what."

Rory turns back to him, and says (in a completely earnest voice), "I want to go out of my way for you. I want to show you how much I care about you."

The warm feeling moves down from Darim's face into his stomach. It's comfortable and pleasant there. "I care about you too," he says. "A lot. And—thank you for going out of your way to try to be romantic." He grins. "But maybe you should practice a little more."

"I—" He laughs a little, too. "Maybe I should."

That's when the first raindrop lands with a plop on his nose. Darim looks up, and so does Rory—and then all of a sudden the sky bursts open, and with no warning at all, rain starts pouring down on them. Rory gives a little gasp and splutters as rain fills his mouth, and Darim shrieks (honestly _shrieks_ —he's so incredibly grateful to be invisible).

"Come on!" Rory calls, over the sound of the rain pounding against street cobbles. He grabs Darim's arm and the two of them go sprinting for the nearest building, dodging carriages and horses, laughing at the sheer absurdity of this. Here they are, two assassins in training, soaked to the bone and stumbling across a crowded street like a couple of drunks. Darim has never been drunk, but he imagines it might feel like this—heady and happy and light. His stomach hurts from laughing, and when he glances over at Rory he's bent over double and grinning fit to burst.

When they finally reach the feeble shelter of the overhang in front of a shop, Darim leans against the wall for support and Rory joins him. For a while they just keep laughing and dripping, and when Darim feels he can't breathe any more, he forces himself to take deep breaths and calm down. "Come here," he says. Rory is shivering through his slowly quieting laughter, and Darim is cold as well.

But when they press themselves together, when Darim can feel Rory's body heat against his chest, the cold and the wet don't matter. They kiss again, long and deep and eager, and Darim is delighted to realize that _every single kiss_ with Rory is proving better than the one before.


	47. Chapter 47

Adewale has been told that he will meet Shay one day, but in fact it is Aveline he meets first. Well—Edward had been _technically_ first, but as he predates Adewale’s apparent mental illness, his existence proves nothing one way or the other.

He is not supposed to be in New Orleans. He is on his way to the homestead Achilles Davenport has carved out as a safe place for the assassins he has trained, when something makes him stop and think. If his hallucinations are in fact _not_ hallucinations, if they are real as they say they are, then Adewale is on his way to meet Shay. He gets the general feeling he's not supposed to know this, because most of his hallucinations have been very vague on dates and locations, but luckily hallucination-Edward is as bad at keeping secrets as actual-Edward. As soon as he'd heard Adewale was headed to see Achilles, he'd told Adewale to say hi to Shay.

Shay, who had been nearby at the time, had kicked Edward in the back of the leg and told Adewale _not_ to say hello to him, and then launched into a very confusing explanation of why that would be a bad idea. Something about how he hadn't known Adewale was a visitor until after he died, so Adewale mentioning it would change the past, which was actually Adewale's future—

Adewale, quite frankly, had not been listening, because all this is ridiculous.

It is ridiculous, isn't it? It can't possibly be real.

Well he'll know for sure, one way or another, if he sees Shay when the ship docks. Unless—well, there's always the possibility he'd heard about Shay somewhere. He is an assassin, isn't he? Adewale communicates occasionally with the brotherhood in this part of the world, it's possible he could have heard the name somewhere and internalized it as part of his madness.

But there is no possible way he could have learned of Aveline. According to Aveline herself, she had been born in 1747. It is 1752, and if she exists she will be a five-year-old girl, the daughter of a moderately successful merchant whom Adewale is _positive_ he has never heard of. There is no way he can know of her unless these hallucinations are, as the others claim, _visits_.

If he arrives in New Orleans and finds her there, he will know she is real.

 He does not explain to the crew why their destination needs to change, but they are used to his work as an assassin taking them to unexpected places. They do not question him, and when Adewale quietly, almost inaudibly, tells them to stay on the ship and wait for him, they do exactly that.

He knows where Aveline had grown up. He'd once found himself in a future New Orleans with Shay and Aveline as they walked around the city, trying to pinpoint places of significance to them. Much has changed, but Adewale has a strong feel for directions. It takes a while to reach his destination, but only because he sticks out on these streets. When he reaches the house where Aveline claims to have grown up, Adewale finds a hidden place to keep watch from.

He sits, and he waits, and eventually he sees a woman leave the house. She's leading a little girl by the hand, and by the resemblance between them he assumes they are mother and daughter.

The girl looks up—not _at_ him, Adewale knows he is too well hidden for that, but in his general direction—and the look in her eyes makes his breath catch. It is strange to see Aveline here, in this time, wearing a dress and a little hat with a ribbon instead of the futuristic clothes he is used to seeing her in. It is stranger even than seeing her as a toddler. After all, he has seen Arno and the Frye siblings at every conceivable stage of _their_ lives, child hallucinations are nothing new. But the look in her eyes is truly unmistakable. This is… somehow, this is Aveline.

He follows them, almost numb, and eventually they reach a marketplace. The woman barters for something or other, but Aveline is clearly bored. She bounces from one foot to the other, hopping and skipping in place. Adewale watches for a while, then unties the red sash he wears around his waist He holds it up to catch the breeze, then when he is confident of the direction he lets go. The cloth drifts down into Aveline's field of view—she follows it with her eyes and then (after a glance back to see that her mother isn’t watching) she follows it with her feet as well, chasing the cloth down the street, giggling as she runs.

Adewale manages to reach it at the same time, walking up to the sash in what he hopes is a casual manner.

"Oh!" Aveline jumps a little on seeing him and backs up, sash clutched in one hand. Her eyes are wide, and Adewale suddenly pities her. He had not meant to scare her, but at the moment he is considerably larger than she is, not to mention heavily armed. "Is this your ribbon, monsieur?"

"It is," Adewale says. He crouches down to her level and smiles, which seems to put her a little more at ease.

"It's very pretty," Aveline says, handing it over.

"Thank you," Adewale says, and Aveline grins nervously at him. One of her front teeth is missing. "What's your name, child?"

He knows, he _knows_ it is her, but he wants to hear it from her own mouth.

"Aveline," she says. "What's _your_ name?"

"Adewale."

She might have said something more, but just then her mother hurries over and pulls her away, scolding her nervously. Adewale distinctly hears her say  _"What did I tell you about talking to strangers?"_ as they hurry away, but Aveline only gives a little one shouldered shrug. She turns and looks back at Adewale, waving goodbye.

He waves back, too stunned to do anything else.

His mind is still scrambling, trying to come up with _any_ explanation besides the possibility of visiting being real. He is torn—on the one hand, all this is _insane!_ And yet, if he is honest with himself, this is not the first time he has suspected that… just perhaps, there is some truth in these hallucinations. But he has never allowed himself to truly dwell on it, choosing to ignore the doubts slowly gathering in his mind.

He glances down at the sash in his hand, then back up in the direction Aveline and her mother had gone in. Maybe… this is real.

Maybe.


	48. Chapter 48

Jacob does not go to see Evie and Henry off when they leave for India. He heads away from the docks, and finds what looks like the hardest building to climb for miles around. Not the tallest, because that's not the same thing. Some of the Rooks have started really getting the hang of climbing, and he doesn't want to be followed.

Mostly he wants to wallow in his own misery for a while. Might be a long while, because it's not like there's anyone left in London to care if he hides on a rooftop for as long as he wants to. He finds a flat rooftop in the shadow of a much larger building, and lies himself out to sulk for the indefinite future.

It's noon when he arrives, and the ship is due to leave at one. Jacob hears a nearby clock chime the hour, and rolls over so he's facedown on the roof instead. It smells absolutely terrible, but he has bigger worries because assuming the ship had left on time, Jacob is now the only Frye left in all of England.

It's very lonely.

A visitor arrives at about half past five. Jacob can feel it like an unscratchable itch at the base of his skull, but ignores the feeling. He doesn't want to see whoever it is unless they're Evie. Or Arno. Jacob definitely wouldn’t say no to seeing Arno, but Arno's sort of a special case because he's _Arno_. Jacob doesn't think he's ever going to fall out of love with his visitor, even though Arno doesn't seem like he'll ever be able to let go of Elise and love Jacob. Doesn't matter. Jacob still likes being around Arno.

Normally, Jacob is pretty good at not thinking about Arno. He's gotten used to the idea of just being friends, no matter how much he wants to be something more. It's just that the idea of being less than friends is even worse, and Jacob will take whatever he can get. But today Evie is going away, and that would have been so much easier to take if he had Arno to fall back on.

Jacob waits for a while, just in case his visitor is one of them. Then he sighs as the silence stretches out. Evie would be telling Jacob off for moping if she were here, and Arno would want to know what's wrong with him. Jacob can imagine exactly what his voice would sound like, equally worried and concerned as he tried to figure out if something is actually wrong with Jacob, or if he's just acting out. Whoever is visiting him does neither of those things, so Jacob doesn't care who it is. He lets his attention drift, which seems to be his visitor's cue to stop ignoring him and speak up.

"Are you planning to lie there indefinitely?"

Jacob groans aloud, although he regrets it almost at once because it involves opening his mouth and getting a mouthful of dirty roof. Why, why, _why_ did it have to be Haytham? "Go away," he mumbles.

"Are you drunk?" Haytham asks.

"No."

"Are you injured?"

"No."

"Are you—"

"Go away, why don't you?" Jacob says, rolling over and sitting up.

"I'm visiting," Haytham says, as if to a very slow child.

"I don't care," Jacob says. "I want to be alone."

Haytham gives him a weirdly critical look, and eases himself into a crouching position a few feet away. "No you don't," he says.

Well no, maybe he doesn't, but he certainly doesn't want to be with Haytham right now. Jacob looks away and doesn't answer.

"Who were you hoping for?" Haytham asks.

Jacob hesitates. When he answers, it's only a half truth. "Evie," he says. "She left for India with Henry and I didn't _want_ her to go."

Haytham gives him a look that Jacob can't quite read. "Who were you hoping for?" he asks again.

Jacob's eyes slide downward until he's staring at the roof. "Arno," he mumbles.

"You're in love with him."

Jacob's gaze jerks back to Haytham and his mouth is already opening to protest that well no, of course not, but Haytham holds a hand out to stop him before he can even say a word. "I know the look on your face," he says.

Jacob grumbles something that probably isn't even real words. He's thinking _yea okay so I love him so what_ and _you don't know anything_ and _he doesn't want me so it doesn't even matter_ all at once, and the words get jumbled up into nonsense on their way out of his mouth.

"I didn't quite hear that," Haytham says.

Jacob _glares_ at him. He glares and the anger flares up into speech, cutting through the block in his mind, allowing him speech again. "I _do_!" he says, and the shout is like freedom because _everything is permitted_ but _everything_ does not mean _everyone_ and it's eating Jacob, not being allowed to love Arno. "I love him and I don't care how many stupid comments you have to make about that, because I won't ever stop."

"No, no." Haytham sighs, and gradually shifts to a more comfortable sitting position not far from Jacob. "That was unkind, and I do apologize. I…" He goes silent for so long that Jacob thinks he might have given up on the conversation altogether. Then he swallows and looks back at Jacob, something raw and frightened on his face. "I know what it is to love visitors that… cannot…"

He just breathes for a moment, laboriously, as if this admission is costing him something dear. Jacob waits, curious in spite of himself.

"Visitors that cannot love you back," Haytham finishes.

"Yea? Who do _you_ love?" Jacob asks.

Haytham looks at him. "You can never tell anyone."

"I won't," Jacob says.

"Not Arno," Haytham insists. "Not Evie."

"I promise," Jacob says. "So who _is_ it?" He flips through the options in his mind—one of the original visitors, almost definitely. Haytham is related to Edward and Connor, that doesn't seem right, and he's sort of weirdly adopted Desmond. _Not_ Altair. Ezio? No, Ezio is loud and fun and everything Haytham isn't. So Shay? He's a templar. Or maybe Aveline, although—

"Aveline," Haytham says.

Ah. Alright then.

" _And_ Shay."

"Oh!" And Jacob had thought it was bad just loving Arno. At least he's not in love with multiple visitors. "Did you ever do anything?" he asks. "Did you tell them? Did you—"

" _Yes_ ," Haytham says, and Jacob shuts up because he has never heard Haytham talk like this. The word bursts from him like it's trying to escape. Like it's a living thing that's been trapped inside Haytham, just waiting for its chance to break free and be heard. "There was one night. One."

"What happened?" Jacob asks.

"I did not have to tell them how I felt," Haytham says hoarsely. "They simply knew. I thought I could hide what I wanted from them, from myself, and in the end I could do neither. Right before I died, they took me into their bed."

Jacob realizes he's holding his breath. He's waiting for… for what? A happy ending? He knows Haytham isn't involved with the other two in the future, so clearly this story doesn't have a happy ending. But Jacob wants it to so badly, because Haytham and Shay and Aveline is so much more unlikely than himself and Arno, and if those three can make each other happy…

"What went wrong?" Jacob asks, when he realizes Haytham apparently isn't intending to go on talking, that maybe there is no more to the story. It seems like there should be. Surely it can't end there. "You couldn't get it up, or something?"

Haytham, still breathing irregularly, still obviously struggling to make his way through the conversation, doesn't acknowledge the insult. He doesn't even seem to notice. "I could never bring myself to mention it again," he says. "I was supposed to die after we—" He shakes his head. "None of us knew we were going to come back. I did not know that I would ever work with Shay again, that I would live in the same house, that I would spend countless nights lying awake, listening to them love one another, wishing myself back into their arms."

He looks down, then away, anywhere but at Jacob. "If you ever want to find happiness," he says. "Forget about Arno."

"I can't forget him," Jacob insists. "The same as you obviously can't forget Shay and Aveline! I'd give anything to have him… _once_. Just once, like you did."

"No you wouldn't," Haytham says quietly. "Because having one night with those you love is the worst outcome of all. Some part of me is still there, with them, still stuck in that same night. Just as some part of me remains with Connor's mother, in those months before she sent me away. I can never get those parts of myself back. I cannot move on."

"Did you ever try…" He knows almost nothing about Connor's mother, but Haytham lives with Shay and Aveline. "I don't know. Did you talk to _them_ about this?"

Haytham gives Jacob a look that strongly implies he is both an idiot and a madman. "They offered me more than I ever expected with that night," he says. "I cannot ask for more."

Jacob shrugs and doesn't answer. Partly because it's none of his business, and partly because he's thinking that it wouldn't be such a big deal to leave a part of himself to Arno. He sort of likes the idea of Arno watching over some part of him, keeping him safe from all the stupid things Jacob does. Besides, Jacob has been losing bits and pieces of his heart to Arno for what feels like forever now. He's not sure what he has left to give.

When Haytham's visit has ended, Jacob stays where he is on the roof. His pouty moping has given way to a deeper kind of sadness. It's like running along level ground and having the ground give way underneath him. Jacob feels like he's fallen into a black pit, and he'll never be able to get out on his own.

The second visitor of the day appears as the sun begins to go down, and Jacob flinches as Arno sighs tiredly and sits next to him, leaning against his shoulder. He's dirty and smells of sweat, and is not yet wearing his assassin robes. This is an early Arno, just starting his training. He has no idea how Jacob feels about him yet. He won't for a very long time, not until after Elise dies. For now, in his mind, they're just friends. Friends that like to do very stupid things together, yes, close friends even, but just friends nonetheless. Jacob is happier than he should be to see how comfortable Arno is with him, even when he hadn't known Jacob long. Arno's head on his shoulder is a solid, comfortable reminder of their friendship.

"This assassin stuff kind of sucks," Arno complains. His eyes are already closed, and Jacob thinks Arno might fall asleep on him there and then. "I can't remember the last time I wasn't sore all over."

"You get used to it," Jacob promises. He hesitates, then puts his arm around Arno's shoulders, drawing him close.

"Maybe," Arno says. "I'm not very good at any of this stuff. Not sure I'll ever make a half decent assassin."

"Well, maybe not half decent," Jacob says. "But definitely three eights."

Arno's mouth twitches up in a sleepy sort of smile, and Jacob watches the movement. He's thinking about kissing that mouth, he's thinking all the things he'd do with Arno if only, if only…

Another little piece of Jacob's heart slips away from him, into Arno's care. He thinks about how much Haytham would have disapproved, had he been there to see

"Sorry," Arno mutters after a while. He keeps nodding off and then jerking himself awake. "I'm afraid I'm not very good company tonight. I'm just exhausted."

"So get some sleep," Jacob says. "I don't care. We can do something stupid and crazy next time."

"Sounds perfect," Arno says. And then he doesn't say anything else, and the only sound on the rooftop is his quiet breathing, in and out, over and over again. A constant, soothing rhythm that catches Jacob off guard, and soon enough lulls him to sleep as well.

As he slips into dreams, Jacob finds himself hoping that Arno's visit will be a long one. It's not exactly what he wants, but he can think of worse ways to wake up than with Arno cradled in his arms.


	49. Chapter 49

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was supposed to be about Jacob and a horse. And then I thought 'what if the horse was a cat?!' and then... this chapter happened.

Jacob is bored and he's here visiting Ezio, who is sleeping. Everyone is sleeping, it's the middle of the night here, and—well, actually Jacob can hear Shay and Aveline going at it from a few rooms over, but he's not exactly going to interrupt them, is he?

He hears a thud and a moan and something that sounds like a giggle.Nope, definitely not going to interrupt them.

Ezio's door is open just a crack, and suddenly a little yellow cat comes darting through it. A second after that, a little girl comes running in after it. Jacob thinks he recognizes her as Desmond's daughter, but he can't remember her name. "Lion!" she says, sort of half trying to whisper and half calling for the cat. "Lion, lion, come back!"

The cat is faster and more agile than the girl, and for a while she seems to enjoy chasing it. She keeps one hand pressed over her mouth, stifling giggles (probably to keep from waking Ezio) and the other one reaches out toward the cat. Finally, the cat ends up on top of a tall dresser, tail curled around its legs as it looks haughtily down at her. The little girl takes her hand off her mouth to call for the cat one more time, but when the cat doesn't move her shoulders slump and her giggly smile droops into a frown. "Come play with me!" she whines. "I'm _bored!"_

Jacob is bored too, visiting people when they're asleep is always boring, and that's what makes him decide to steal Ezio's body. He's only done this a couple of times before—once with Arno, and then _very briefly_ with Evie in an incident that had… not ended well. She'd been angry with him for weeks after, and ever since then Jacob has been reluctant to borrow anyone else's body. But it's Ezio, he'll probably be okay with it. Won't he?

Jacob holds his breath as he wills himself into Ezio, shaking his head to wipe away the confusion of shifting abruptly from standing to lying down. He gets out of bed and looks down, relieved to see Ezio is still asleep, stretched out on the ground where Jacob had been standing a second ago. He just barely has time to take this in before the girl dashes over and throws her arms around his knees. "Ezio!" she says. "Don't make me go back to bed, I don't _wanna_ go back to bed, I wanna play with Lion!"

"Shh," Jacob says. "Shh, I'm not Ezio, I'm visiting him. You know about visits, right?" He vaguely remembers Evie telling him Desmond's daughter is part of a second group of visitors.

She nods, confusion fading quickly. "Are _you_ gonna make me go to bed?" she asks.

"Nah," Jacob says. The girl beams and bounces up and down a little. "Can you help me catch Lion?" she asks, and Jacob nods. "But we have to stay really, really quiet, okay? I don't want Ezio to wake up."

"Where is he?" she asks, and Jacob points at the ground where Ezio is sleeping. The girl is very careful to keep away from that particular spot, dancing around it in a wide berth.

"What's your name?" Jacob asks, when he has scooped up the cat and shooed the girl out of the room and away from the sleeping Ezio. Not _too_ far away, obviously, but Jacob can at least get to the next room.

"Elena," she says, in a sort of sing-song voice.

Jacob passes her the cat and offers her a dramatic bow and a grin that makes her giggle again. "Jacob Frye," he says.

"Jacob!" she says. "I have a visitor called Jacob too. She's nice."

"She?" Jacob repeats. "Is your Jacob a girl?"

Elena is already stretched out on the floor, poking at Lion's paws until the cat bats her away. "Of course she is," she says, off handedly. "Jacob's a girl's name. Aren't you a girl?"

"Jacob's not a girl's name," Jacob protests.

Elena sticks out her tongue. "Is so!" she insists. "You're a _girl_!"

"I think I would know if I was a girl," Jacob says, and Elena shakes her head stubbornly.

They argue about whether or not Jacob is a girl for at least another hour. Then Elena finds a little scrunchy toy for Lion to chase around, and this almost immediately leads to the cat crashing into a stack of boxes (there always seem to be boxes lying around when Jacob visits the future—this group of visitors is always moving). It yowls loudly and wakes _everyone_ up. There's a little bit of chaos. He cat is thoroughly insulted by everyone. Ezio demands his body back right away. Desmond frowns at Elena and reminds her that she's supposed to be in bed, not playing with visitors and cats. Evie follows Desmond out of his room, barely dressed (which means—are they _sleeping_ together? Jacob has just barely had a chance to get used to the fact that they've just recently started kissing), and refuses to so much as meet Jacob's eyes.

And into this chaos Elena finally shouts. " _Daddy_!" loud enough to make everyone look over at her.

"What?" Desmond asks.

She points at Ezio, probably assuming Jacob is still in his body. "Tell Jacob she's a girl!"

"I am _not_!" Jacob says, and Evie doubles over laughing, happy and amused in a way Jacob has rarely seen her before. It's not a bad sound.

" _Visiting_ ," she says, in a voice that still echoes with traces of laughter. "I will never get used to this."


	50. Chapter 50

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Fifty! Geeze, it took me so much longer to get here in Visiting Hours...

Arno has gotten much better at being still since Elise died.

It used to be that so much as an hour spent waiting for an informant or watching a target would start him fidgeting and pacing, but now…

These days, Arno can spend an entire day in one position without moving so much as an inch. It helps that he has nothing to do and nowhere to go—he is done with the assassins, he has no family and few other connections. So if he wants to climb until his arms and legs ache, and then spend the rest of the day in silent, unmoving watch over Paris, who will stop him?

Well, his visitors try. But Arno is learning patience along with his stillness, and they always fade away eventually. Only Jacob can occasionally crack through the shell Arno has been building around himself since Elise's death, and that's… sort of a problem.

Because Jacob is in love with Arno. He's admitted as much, more than once. He blurts the words out with disturbing regularity, as easily as he might mention the weather. Arno never knows what to say in response—most times, he stays quiet or changes the subject. But he is afraid that every time he smiles at Jacob, every time he allows Jacob to break him out of the funk that Elise's death has wrapped him in, it is only encouraging Jacob.

Arno has no idea how he feels about Jacob, and it's not like he's all that interested in figuring it out. Thinking about Jacob, and Jacob being in love with him, only ever gets Arno thinking about Elise again. And he spends far too much time doing that anyway. If Arno were smart, if he was better at controlling his emotions, he wouldn't let Jacob get to him the way he does. But there's something about Jacob that makes Arno feel like he used to, before Elise's death. When Jacob is around, Arno feels like smiling, he feels like running after Jacob to do stupidly dangerous things, he feels like himself again.

It's confusing. Because Arno is so tired of feeling sad and heavy and half dead himself, but being happy feels like a betrayal of Elise. And smiling at Jacob feels like an encouragement that Arno doesn't think he wants to give. It would all be so much easier if Jacob would just stop visiting, and leave Arno to his quiet and his stillness, Arno decides one day. Today he has climbed to the top of the Café Theatre, and settled himself in to watch the comings and goings of the people on the street below him. He used to go farther, but lately he has been planting himself closer and closer to home. It's just hard to find the energy to go out these days, hard to find the energy to do anything, really. Arno is very afraid of the day when he'll wake up without the energy to even make it to the roof, because he has to climb, he has to make it up and out and into the open air.

The walls press in on Arno when he stays inside. Eventually, no matter how nice the room, it starts to remind him of the underground tomb where Elise died.

As always when his thoughts stray to Elise's death, Arno sternly reminds himself not to think of it. And as always, it does no good at all. Arno frowns but does not otherwise move—he goes still and quiet, scarcely breathing as he watches the city below him.

And then in an instant, his stillness is thrown into motion. Arno is no longer on his rooftop, he is hurtling along a London railroad. The sudden rush of motion, accompanied as it is by the stench of smog and smoke, the shriek of the train's whistle, the blur of London's landscape racing past the windows, is enough to send Arno falling painfully to the ground.

"Arno!"

It's not Jacob, Arno realizes as he accepts Evie's offered hand, clambering ungracefully to his feet. He isn't sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. "Is your brother here?" he asks, because Arno isn't sure he has the energy to deal with Jacob just now.

Evie rolls her eyes. "Of course that would be the first thing you ask," she says. "He can't seem to talk about anything but you, either."

"Oh," Arno says. He pulls away from Evie and sits down next to her.

Evie raises her eyebrows. "Is that a bad thing?" she asks. "I thought the two of you were close.

Arno still doesn't want to talk about this. He doesn't want to talk about the visit where Jacob kissed him, or all the ones since then when he hadn't quite known what to say to Jacob's feelings… but it's Evie. If anyone can help him understand Jacob, it's his sister.

"I think Jacob's in love with me," Arno admits.

Evie laughs, but it's a short noise, quickly cut off. Arno watches one emotion after another chase each other across her face—amusement, followed by suspicion, surprise, and finally denial. "No," she says. "Not my brother. What makes you think Jacob is in love with you?"

"He kissed me," Arno says. Evie flinches—obviously she hadn't known. "And ever since then he keeps telling me he loves me."

They watch each other for a long moment. Arno is waiting for a reaction, and Evie seems to be searching for a sign that Arno is teasing her. "You're serious," she says after a while.

"You didn't suspect?" Arno asks.

"I didn't—you're a man."

"I know."

Evie's eyebrows pull together in confusion. "Does he like men? He—well, there was that time that he kissed himself. I thought he was trying to bother me, but…" She trails off, watching the blur of motion outside the nearest window.

"I don't know what to do," Arno says. "What am I supposed to tell him?"

Evie seems to be struggling to pull her attention back to the problem at hand. "Well, I guess that depends whether you love him," she says at last.

"He's not Elise," Arno says.

Evie's mouth twitches into an almost smile. "Well, no," she agrees.

"I love Elise."

"Trust me, Arno," Evie says. "It's possible to love two people at the same time. It's not always happy, but it's not impossible either."

Right. Because she is in love with both Desmond and Henry. "Is it the same?" he asks. "Loving Desmond and loving Henry?"

"Not at all," Evie says. "They're different people, and my feelings for them are different."

That’s a bit disappointing. Arno's feelings for Jacob are entirely different from his feelings for Elise, and he'd been hoping for an easy way out of this. But… well, maybe he loves Jacob and maybe he doesn't. Arno hasn't let himself think about it yet, and he doesn't really want to start now.

"What if I _do_ love him?" Arno asks, in a tone of such absolute horror that it makes Evie frown.

"What do you mean, _what do you do_?" she asks. "You tell him and you make both of you happy."

"But—I can't—not with Jacob!"

"What's wrong with Jacob?" Evie asks. Her tone is suddenly frosty. "Are you trying to imply he's not good enough for you, Arno?"

Arno has no idea what he's trying to imply. He has no idea what he's feeling, and the walls of the train are starting to press uncomfortably in on him. He shifts in his seat. "No," he says, because he's not an idiot and this is obviously the correct answer. "But…" He's not Elise. "Evie?"

"What?"

"Would loving someone else… would I betray Elise if I loved Jacob?"

Her eyes soften, just a little. "No," she says. "You're alive, Arno." She studies him, taking in his tired face and indifferent attire. "I'm not sure if you know that, the way you're acting. But you're still alive, and if you let your love for Elise keep you from loving anyone else, that love is just a prison."

The words will take time to process—Arno will need to think before he can decide if Evie is right. But they stick in his mind. He nods.

"Think about Jacob," Evie says. "And if you love him, _tell_ him." She sticks an almost threatening finger in his face—Arno glances down and sees she's wearing her hidden blade. "I want my brother to be happy."

Arno nods weakly, and then his visit ends.

For the rest of the day, as he unpacks the potential implications of his conversation with Evie and wrestles with the unknown extent of his feelings for Jacob, Arno absolutely cannot bring himself to be still.


	51. Chapter 51

Aveline has given birth four times before getting pregnant in the twenty first century. Three, if she lets Shay have credit for Jeanne (which normally she does, because after all he'd done all the hard work in that case). But three or four, the point is that Aveline knows what she's doing and she knows how to have a baby, thank you very much.

The problems with the birth of her fifth child actually starts with Haytham. He means well, of course, he's only concerned for her. He had only ever seen snatches of her first four pregnancies on visits, and Aveline knows he hadn't been around for Connor's birth. He and Desmond are the only visitors that haven't had the dubious pleasure of being around a pregnant woman for nine months straight, but where Desmond seems satisfied that Aveline knows what she is doing, Haytham cares too much.

"I found this website last night," he tells her one morning, when Aveline is about three months along.

"Oh?" She's only half listening, distracted by the usual early morning chaos of the safe house.

"Yes, Aveline," Haytham says. He emphasizes her name and uses his most serious voice, presumably to show her how serious he finds this. "It's called WebMD—"

"Oh, _Christ_ ," Shaun mutters from the other end of the table, glancing up from his cereal long enough to give them a disgruntled look. Both of them ignore him.

"What did it say?" Aveline asks.

"I thought it might be helpful to read up on pregnancy a little," Haytham says. "Given that you are, in fact, pregnant."

"I am," Aveline agrees, with just a hint of a smile. "But I've been pregnant before, Haytham. I know what to expect." Her reassurance does nothing to smooth away the little folds of worry around his eyes and forehead though, and Aveline turns her full attention onto him. "What did this website say that was so concerning?" she asks.

"There are a great many things that can go wrong in pregnancy," he says.

"It's always been dangerous," Aveline says gently.

"But now all the bad things have _names_ ," Haytham says.

"That doesn’t make them any worse," Aveline says.

"It certainly makes them sound worse," Haytham says. He doesn't even give Aveline the chance to say something calming before he goes on, "Did you know the baby can poop inside you before it's even born?"

Shaun sighs and stands up, carrying his breakfast over to the garbage can. He dumps it in and then walks off, shaking his head in silent mourning for his ruined meal.

"I'm sure it will be fine," Aveline says. "Haytham, please stop worrying. Women have been giving birth for a very long time by now. I will be fine. And in six months, you'll be sitting up at nights listening to the baby screaming, and you'll wonder why you were so worried in the first place."

"I would at least feel better if you would consider giving birth in a hospital," Haytham says. "There will be doctors there in case something goes wrong."

"No," Aveline says. "Shay and I have discussed this. We know Abstergo have access to the most hospital records, and we don't want to give them any information about me or about the baby."

"Let me take care of that," Haytham says. He leans forward toward her a little. "I want you and your child to be safe. I'm sure I can find some way to keep Abstergo away from your information. But I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I knew I had stood by and let you do this alone when you could have had help. If something goes wrong—"

"Nothing will go wrong, Haytham," Aveline says again. She is more alarmed now, and she reaches forward as well to rest a hand on Haytham's arm. His voice is rising, he's close to shouting. "I appreciate your concern, but nothing bad is going to happen."

He raises his eyebrows. "Do you imagine that's what Altair's mother thought before giving birth to him?" he asks. "Or Evie and Jacob's mother, do you think she said the same?"

"Haytham—"

"Or Lucy," he goes on, relentless. "Should we call Elena in and ask her what she would give to have her mother alive and well?"

This is low. Elena doesn't ask about her mother as much as she used to, but she still asks Desmond about her from time to time and Aveline _knows_ that is painful for both of them. She also knows that Haytham would never actually broach the subject with his granddaughter, but it doesn't make his point any less convincing. "Alright," she says. "If you can be certain Abstergo won't learn anything about me or the baby, I'll give birth in the hospital."

"Good," Haytham says, his face clearing as though all his problems have been solved.

Aveline's, on the other hand, are only just beginning. It turns out that one hospital is not, in fact, as good as any other to give birth in. There are all the normal concerns—price, maternity ward reputation—but then she also has to think about how closely they're affiliated with Abstergo, how many questions they want to ask and tests they want to run…

In the end, they manage to pick one out. Things settle down again. Aveline is very used to the pains and annoyances of being pregnant, and if anything this one is easier than most. When she'd had Tomas, Jeanne was a year old, Rory was two, and Philippe was six. And she loves them all dearly, of course, but there are many things she would rather do than chase toddlers around while heavily pregnant.

It still feels strange not to have children around, and Aveline is oddly grateful for Elena's fascination with the whole process. As Aveline gets farther along in her pregnancy, she ends up staying at the safe house babysitting Elena more often. She tries to stay active as long as she can, but eventually even she has to admit that there comes a point where it would be unhealthy for her and the baby to keep going on missions. So she stays home and watches Elena, who is always delighted to sit next to Aveline while she colors or plays with her toys, and chatter on and on to the baby. It's so reminiscent of the way Rory had behaved when Aveline was pregnant with Tomas that Aveline asks at one point if Rory is visiting Elena and possibly borrowing her body.

Eventually the day arrives. Aveline recognizes the feeling and very calmly informs Shay that the baby is coming. Shay is much less calm. Aveline tries not to laugh at him where he can see, and then suggests that Connor drive them both to the hospital. He's both calmer at the moment and a better driver in general.

"We'll catch up with you," Haytham says, as Aveline and Connor head for the car. "We have something to take care of."

"We do?" Shay asks.

"Yes we do," Haytham assures him.

Aveline tries not to think about them as Connor takes them to the hospital, as they're taken to a room, as she's left alone for the moment to wait the contractions out. She's definitely trying not to think how badly she wants Shay here right now, or how this whole stupid hospital plan had been Haytham's idea in the first place.

Connor stays as long as he can, which is nice of him, but eventually the doctor tells him he's not the father so he'll have to wait outside. Connor looks to Aveline—she knows from that look that he would have stayed if she wanted him to, whatever the doctor says. Aveline shakes her head, letting him go. She _can_ do this alone. And anyway, if there was anyone she would have wanted at her side right now, it would have to be Shay.

Where is he?

Birth is painful—Aveline refuses drugs on general principle—and for a while all her focus is on the tiny human being trying to push its way out of her birth canal. There is some kind of chaos going on in the hospital around her. She hears crashes, running feet, some very loud and enthusiastic swearing. The lights flicker once or twice. The doctor starts to get very nervous after a while, but Aveline has been an assassin a very long time and the tumult barely phases her.

The baby's head has just begun to crown when Shay climbs in through the window, ignores the doctor's sputtering protest, and dashes across the room to grip Aveline's outstretched hand.

"You're late," she grunts.

"Sorry." He makes a face. "Haytham had this plan to break into the records room here and redirect all the information they have on you. And on the baby when they get it. Didn't go as well as we'd hoped."

So that had been the reason for all the chaos.

"We did take care of the information, though," Shay says as Aveline glares at him. "It won't make it anywhere near Abstergo."

Well, good. Aveline squeezes his hand, maybe just a little harder than she needs to (Shay winces in pain) and goes back to pushing.

And she _does_ know how to deliver a baby. The last few minutes go smoothly, and in no time at all Aveline is being handed a tiny baby girl.

"Oh!" Shay says, in a hushed, reverent voice that makes Aveline almost actually forgive him for how late he'd been. "She's perfect."

All their children are perfect, but it's… surreal for Aveline to be holding this child here, in this time, thinking how long it's been since the last time she'd done this. From her perspective, it has been fifty nine years since she last gave birth. From a historical perspective, it has been two hundred and twenty four years.

This baby is a miracle, and Aveline loves her instantly and completely.

"Um…" Aveline and Shay look up as one from their daughter's perfect face, and see the doctor that had delivered her looking very nervous. "Do we want to talk about the fact that your husband just climbed through the window?"

"No," Aveline assures him, and the poor confused man sort of nods and shambles off. Aveline looks up at Shay and the both of them laugh. "You should call the others," she says. "I'm sure they'll all want to come see the baby."

Shay takes out his phone to start making calls, but doesn't take his eyes away from Aveline and the baby. Connor and Haytham arrive together a few minutes later (Connor seems mildly annoyed, and Haytham looks vaguely disheveled). Both are happy to see Aveline and the baby doing well. The others arrive within the hour, bringing all their usual chaos with them. Aveline beams at them, and the baby looks up at the host of new people around her with wide eyes.

They name the baby Geraldine.


	52. Chapter 52

Shay finds Arno alone, as he so often does. He knows Arno is close to some of their other visitors (Jacob), and head over heels in love with Elise. But their visitors are—obviously—spread out through time, it's not like Arno can be with them whenever he wants. And Elise is… well, Shay would never have said it to Arno's face, but Elise seems far more interested in avenging her father's death than in pursuing a relationship with anyone. Arno included.

So nearly every time Shay comes to see Arno, he finds the French assassin alone. To his credit, Arno rarely complains. Not out loud, anyway.

Arno looks up at Shay and there's something fragile on his face, like just having someone around to talk to has made his day at least a hundred percent better. It only lasts a second before Arno is able to more or less compose himself again and offer up a deliberately casual greeting.

"Hello, Arno," Shay says, dropping into a nearby chair. They're in Arno's room, and Arno is on his bed, his hidden blade dismantled and laid out in front of him for cleaning. "Do you need any help with that?"

Arno glances down at his blade, then back up at Shay, confusion clear on his face. Everything he feels is clear on his face, Shay has noticed—Arno is very expressive, for an assassin. He's bad at sitting still, and sometimes Shay wonders how much Arno actually believes in the brotherhood. He almost seems to have fallen in with the assassins by accident.

"Do you know how to use a hidden blade?" Arno asks.

For answer, Shay pulls up his sleeve and lets Arno see the blade he still wears strapped to his arm. He's very proud of this blade, if only because he had gone through so much to get it. He'd come to the future absolutely naked, hidden blade included, and it had taken a very long time to convince the assassins to give him a new one. On one level, he can understand where they're coming from. He is a templar, and a hidden blade is not typically the kind of weapon you want to give away to an enemy no matter how friendly you are with them. In the end Shay had taken to borrowing Aveline's when he knew she wouldn't be using it, and after a few months of awkwardly passing it back and forth she'd told him to just keep it and she'd get a new one. So far, everyone has been happy enough to turn a blind eye to this loophole.

"But you're a templar," Arno says. "Why do you have that?"

"I used to be an assassin," Shay says.Arno stares at him like he's grown a second head. "You?" he says. "An _assassin_?"

"Does that surprise you?" Shay asks.

"Well, yea," Arno says. "I guess? I mean, it's hard to picture you and Haytham on opposite sides."

Shay hopes his expression is still impassive.

"And you don't strike me as a very assassin-y kind of person," Arno adds.

"Assassin-y?" Shay repeats.

"Hang on—" Arno turns his head almost ninety degrees and squints a little at Shay.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to imagine you with a hood."

Shay scoffs and moves to the bed, gesturing to the scattered pieces of Arno's blade. "Never mind about me," he says. "Let's look at your blade."

"But—"

"Listen, we can sit here and talk about all the messy bits of my life for the rest of the night, or I can show you how to clean all the blood spots you've been missing."

Arno wavers for a second and then mercifully lets it go, and gestures hopelessly down at the inner workings of his blade. "I can get most of the edges," he says. "But then this inside bit here is harder…"

And so it goes for the rest of the evening. Cleaning Arno's blade takes a while (obviously no one has bothered to teach him to do it correctly until now). Then, when it's been reassembled, Shay shows Arno a few ways to use it that (again) no one has bothered to show him.

"Thank you," Arno says at last. "I really appreciate this, Shay."

Shay gives Arno a careful look, sizing him up. It's not always easy to tell exactly when it is when he visits, but from one or two comments Arno has made tonight imply that he's a full assassin. And yet he doesn't know how to use his blade as well as he should, he doesn't even know how to take care of it. He's spending his night alone in his room, something that Shay doesn't think is unusual to him, and Arno seems tenuously linked to the assassins of this time, at best. And then there is Elise, the only person in this time that seems to matter to Arno at all, and she's a _templar,_ not an assassin.

Shay feels like he at least has an obligation to make his suggestion. Because certainly no one else is going to, and it's possible that it could do a lot to improve Arno's general happiness. "Have you ever thought about joining the templars yourself?" he asks, and Arno laughs for just a second before stopping abruptly.

"Oh," he says. "You're serious."

"Why not?" Shay asks. "You were raised by a templar. You're in love with a templar. The assassins don't care for you. Why are you so loyal to them?"

"I…" Arno's so-expressive face is a pit of confusion, and he struggles to find a good reason. The poor kid (and he is a kid, isn't he? He's so much younger than Shay, so hopelessly unprepared for this war between assassins and templars) looks like a kicked puppy.

He takes pity on Arno and puts a hand on his shoulder. "Never mind," he says, taking care to keep his tone light. "You've picked your path. I suppose you have to see it through to the end."

Arno nods numbly as Shay steps away. He's just starting to feel his visit drawing to an end when Arno calls after him, "Shay?"

"Yes?"

For just a second, Arno looks certain. "My _father_ was an assassin."

"Then I'm sure you'll be a great one," Shay says, and Arno smiles at him a little as the visit ends.


	53. Chapter 53

"It's his birthday," Jenny tells Elena, laughing as she gestures to Haytham.

Elena laughs too, because her grandpa looks no older than four, face lit up with a smile as he runs circles around the ground floor of the Kenway mansion. "He's cute," she says. Then—"Don't tell him I said that."

"Right," Jenny says. "Because I was _planning_ to tell my little brother that his granddaughter thinks he's cute."

They watch the shrieking, giggling toddler run past them again, and then Elena nudges Jenny in the side. They are sixteen and bored, looking for trouble. "Dare you to tell him," she says.

" _No_ ," Jenny says, voice unexpectedly fond. "I don't need to mess his head up for him already. He's only four, he deserves a couple more years thinking he's normal."

"He won't even remember," Elena says. "He's a toddler. He'll just think you're talking about weird grownup stuff."

"But—"

Haytham runs into Jenny, almost knocking her off her feet, and bounces back to continue running. Jenny mutters one of Jacob's favorite curse words under her breath, and calls "Hey, Haytham!"

He stops in his tracks and looks back at her. "What?"

"Are you going to tell him?" Elena asks, laughing and invisible at Jenny's side. "What happened to not messing his head up?"

"Well now he's annoying me," Jenny mutters. She raises her voice so Haytham can hear her. "Your granddaughter thinks you're cute," she calls at him.

"Ew!" Haytham says, twisting up his whole face and sticking out his tongue. "I'm not _cute_! And babies are gross, I'm not ever gonna have kids! _Or_ grandkids!"

"Poor Connor," Elena says cheerfully, and almost doubles over laughing again at how hard Jenny is trying to keep a straight face. "And poor Matthew."

Haytham obviously notices her grinning at his expense—his grossed out face shifts into one of vague hurt, and Elena suddenly feels bad. "Come on," he mutters to the empty air next to him. He sounds sulky. "Let's go play somewhere else. My sister's _mean_."

Neither Elena nor Jenny is laughing now—Elena suddenly feels really guilty about egging Jenny on, and she frowns. It sucks not being able to apologize. Jenny is apparently thinking along the same lines, because she hurries after him. "Haytham," she calls. " _Haytham_!"

He's sitting on the foot of the stairs, arms crossed and stubbornly not looking at her. "Go away," he says. "I'm playing with my invisible friend. He's _special_. Dad says only me and him can see him. You're not allowed so there."

"Oh," Elena says. "Jenny! He's got a visitor."

Jenny kneels down next to Haytham (he makes a noise that sounds like _hmm!_ and swivels away from her). "Hey," she says softly. "Haytham. I'm sorry I laughed at you."

He lets her move so that they're facing each other, but doesn't stop frowning. "I'm not _cute_ ," he says again.

"No," Jenny says indulgently. "You're very tough and manly."

Haytham considers this, and then finally unfolds. "Okay then," he says, and leans over to wrap his arms around her waist in an impulsive hug. "Do you want to meet my friend?" he asks.

Jenny feigns confusion, pulling her eyebrows together and frowning. "I thought you said he was invisible," she says.

Haytham frowns. "Oh yea."

"What's he like?" Elena asks, because now that Haytham doesn't look so upset her curiosity is overcoming her guilt. "Jenny, ask him who his visitor is."

"What's his name?" Jenny asks, and Haytham points at a space between Jenny and Elena. For a second, Elena wonders what would happen if she and Haytham's visitor tried to occupy the exact same space. Neither of them is actually here, so theoretically it would work, wouldn't it?

"He's a kid like me," Haytham announces, in the proud voice of a boy without enough playmates his own age. "We're _friends_."

"Yes," Jenny says, with far more patience than is usual for her. "But what's his name?"

"Desmond," Haytham says.

Elena grins, pleased at the thought of her dad being nearby even if she can't see him. But Jenny is smiling too, and her smile has a hint of mischief about it that worries Elena. "Hey, Haytham," she says, dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper.

He inches closer and puts his mouth by her ear. "What?" he whispers back, but his whisper is still loud enough that Elena can hear him clearly from three feet away.

"I know a way I can meet your friend."

"Jenny," Elena says. "What are you _doing_?"

But Jenny is quietly telling Haytham how to let Desmond borrow his body, and Haytham is looking at her with a kind of excited skepticism. "Does it really work?" he asks.

"Sure," Jenny says. Then, as if the idea has just occurred to her (although Elena is fairly sure this must have been her plan the whole time), she says, "You know what, I have an invisible friend too. I'll let her borrow my body, and then when you know it works, you can let your friend borrow your body. Okay?"

Haytham nods, still very obviously uncertain, and Elena frowns at Jenny. "What's the point of this supposed to be?"

But Jenny has always been best at forcing other people into her body, and before Elena can blink she's in Jenny's skin, looking down at Haytham. The toddler has his hands clenched into fists, face screwed up in concentration like he's trying to do something incredibly difficult.

…it's _really_ cute, whatever Haytham says.

"Don't you want to talk to your dad?" Jenny asks, and now that she's safely invisible she starts really laughing, bent over with her hand on the banister to keep herself steady. "God! This is ridiculous."

Elena is about to insist they switch back when suddenly Haytham says, "Oh!" and springs back a step, looking around with wary confusion. Then he looks up at Elena, and behind the fear she just barely recognizes her dad. He's _never_ scared, or at least he never lets her see it.

He shuffles his feet and twists his fingers together. "Are you still Haytham's sister?" he asks.

Oops. He's adorable too, and Elena has a soft spot for kids—she can't wait to grow up and have her own someday. She melts a little bit. "No," she says, and even though Jenny's right and this is slightly ridiculous, she beams down at her dad anyway. Maybe he can see the very real affection for him in her smile, because he stops his nervous shuffling and smiles back at her. "My name's Elena."

"Hi, 'Lena."

"Hi, da—Desmond." It's so weird to call him by his first name.

His smile gets bigger, and he leans up to whisper into her ear just like Haytham had whispered to Jenny a few minutes ago. It's such an obvious attempt to copy Haytham that Elena _almost_ laughs. But she doesn't, because while she doesn't know exactly what her dad's childhood had been like she knows it was sad. He doesn't need her laughing at him for trying to be like Haytham. That's what kids do, isn't it? Try to be just like the older kids they look up to? "I'm playing with Haytham," her dad says says, and his voice is just a little puff of air against her ear, barely audible. "But don't tell my dad 'cuz I'll get in trouble, okay?"

"For playing?" Elena asks.

Her dad pulls back and nods at her, wide eyed and scared. "I'm not supposed to play," he says. "Just training."

"Well…" he looks so _sad_. "Your dad's not here right now, I promise. So you should have as much fun as you can while you're here."

"Yea!" he beams and makes a move to hug her, then backs off abruptly, like he's been taught _not_ to hug. Elena scoops him up in the biggest, most enthusiastic hug she can manage, and is rewarded by a happy little noise that sounds like a purring cat. "Thank you," he says politely, after a very long time when he's had his fill of hugging and wiggled away.

Elena grins and messes up his hair. "Love you," she tells him.

Her dad takes this at face value, blushing bright red and smiling like he'll never, ever stop. Then Haytham takes his body back and makes a face, running his hands through his hair. "Jenny!" he whines. "Your friend messed my hair up!"

"It's cute," Elena says.

"It's not _cuuuuuute_!" Haytham shouts one last time, running off down the hall with his visitor, presumably, following him.

Elena ducks back out of Jenny's body, then shakes her head. "Interesting plan," she says.

"I thought it worked pretty well," Jenny says.

"So what happens when grandpa goes to Edward and tells him you have 'invisible friends' too?" Elena asks. "You might have just messed up the whole timeline."

"Nah," Jenny says, waving a dismissive hand. "Even if he remembers to tell dad—which quite frankly he probably won't, his attention span is about two minutes—I'll just say he's making stuff up. And then we'll get in an argument, and Haytham will pretend to cry so dad will pick him up, and by the time he's done everyone will have forgotten what we were arguing about in the first place."

Elena stares at Jenny for a second, then laughs and shakes her head. "I love this family," she says, and she's thinking of her dad's beaming-happy expression when she'd told him she loves him.


	54. Chapter 54

He's not supposed to tell and he knows he's not supposed to tell but the thing is _he really wants to tell._

“Edward,” Ade says, in that cautious voice Edward has come to know particularly well. “You look like there's something you want to say to me.”

“…nope,” Edward says. Then, when Ade continues to look justifiably unconvinced, he adds “Definitely.”

Ade raises his eyebrows.

“ _Not,_ I meant. Definitely not.”

Ade snorts in disbelief or amusement, Edward doesn't know which, and turns away. His attention is still fixed on the same thing he's been looking at since Edward arrived on this visit. Or the same person, technically.

“Shay never told me he had that stupid mustache,” Ade says, gesturing to the young assassin.

“Yea. Well.” Edward is pretty sure that's because Shay has been trying very hard not to draw too much attention to himself on visits with Ade. Otherwise he might have accidentally admitted exactly the sorts of things Edward is trying to avoid saying now. That Shay is going to betray the assassins to become a Templar, that he and Haytham will nearly kill him a few years from now. Fun stuff like that. “It's not the sort of thing that comes up naturally, is it? A man’s likely to want to hide his bad choices in facial hair.” Among other things, of course. Like being a templar.

"You should talk," Ade says, glancing sideways at Edward.

"What?"

Ade sort of gestures to his own chin. "Your beard, Edward."

"Oh, _Christ_ ," Edward mutters, shaking his head and laughing. "You're never going to let me forget that, are you?"

"It was truly horrendous," Ade says.

"It wasn't that bad!"

"Yes. Yes, it was."

Edward smiles, momentarily distracted from thoughts of templars. It's nice to talk like this, like they had back on the _Jackdaw_ when things were easy, before either of them knew much about assassins or templars or anything. This had been what Edward expected when Ade joined the visitors, but all he's gotten is grumpy-Ade, as convinced as Desmond had ever been that visiting was nothing but a hallucination.

"So what am I supposed to do here?" Ade asks, growing serious again and returning his attention to Shay. "Is he expecting me to say something? Or do I pretend not to know him?"

"Uh—" Edward's mind snaps back to that thing he's not supposed to talk about, Ade's inevitable almost-murder at Shay's hands. He fights to bring himself back on track. "Probably pretend not to know him," he says. "Because you weren't visiting him here. Actually, I think Shay might not even be visiting yet."

"Can he see you?" Ade asks. "You're visiting me, and he's one of our visitors."

"I don't think so," Edward says. "Altair tried to explain it to me, but I didn't really get any of it."

Ade nods like this is exactly what he had been expecting.

"But basically it's like there's two different groups," Edward says. "There's pre-death visitors, and there's just eight of us and you weren't invited. That's why I'd get visitors on the _Jackdaw_ and you never saw them. But then there's post-death visitors, where the original eight of us ended up in the future and added you four extra people."

"And the two groups can't see visitors from the other group?"

"Yep."

They both watch Shay again for a while. By now he's obviously aware of Ade staring at him, and after looking self-consciously over his shoulder for a while he runs over to where Hope and Liam are talking nearby. He looks more secure, surrounded by his friends and safe for the moment from Ade's intense stare. Edward feels a stab of pity for this young Shay, who doesn't yet know he will one day have to kill the very people he's laughing with so easily with now.

"This is all very confusing," Ade says.

"Yea, well, you get used to it," Edward says. Then—"Ade?"

"Edward."

"Are you starting to believe we're real?" Edward asks. "I mean… you never asked questions before. You weren't interested in how visiting works because you're so convinced we're all in your mind."

"Well I'm starting to meet you in person now," Ade says. "Maybe… I'm a little bit convinced."

Edward hugs him. He knows Ade will hate it, but his old quartermaster's shout of protest is just another sign that maybe things are getting back to the way they used to be. Besides, Ade is smiling is the force of Edward's hug sends them crashing down together. _"Edward_ ," he says, fondly.

"Excuse me, sir?"

Both Edward and Ade look up as Shay interrupts the wrestling session that follows (although it's mostly Edward trying to cling onto Ade and Ade trying to push him off). Shay looks extremely confused, staring at where lies on the ground, writhing around for no apparent reason. Ade kicks Edward and he reluctantly lets go, letting both of them clamber to their feet.

"Was I, um… interrupting something?" Shay asks. "Were you having a fit or something?"

"You are very old," Edward tells Ade. Ade steps on his foot.

Shay nods slowly, although he still looks unconvinced. "Alright then," he says. "Um—Achilles sent me to get you. He says he needs to talk about something." He gestures back at Hope and Liam, who have been joined by the old man while Edward and Ade were distracted.

"I'm coming," Ade says, and Edward trails after the two of them as they walk off, talking quietly. Damn, but he can't seem to go thirty seconds in this visit without thinking about Ade's almost-death. Because they're right there! Just casually talking about assassin business like there's nothing wrong, like—

Edward's visit ends abruptly, and he goes running off immediately to find Shay. He finds him with Haytham, both of them wearing their plotting-about-templar-business faces, and for a second is struck dumb by the unfairness of it all. Because here is Shay, making plans with Haytham, when in another life he'd looked for all the world like any other young assassin recruit.

It's—strange, all of a sudden.

Haytham looks up first and sees the expression on Edward's face. "What's wrong?" he asks.

Edward gestures at Shay. "He's going to try and kill Ade." Actually they'd _both_ been there, hadn't they? "And you're going to help."

Both of them frown at him. "Not to sound unfeeling," Haytham says after a moment's pause. "But we all know this already. What's brought this on all of a sudden?"

"I can't tell _him_ ," Edward says glumly. "Because that would definitely mess things up and I'm _trying_ to be better. But he's my friend and he doesn't know that he's going to be betrayed and almost killed. I don't feel good keeping that from him."

Haytham does his best to placate Edward with a few understanding words, but it's Shay tracking him down later that actually helps.

"Thanks," he tells Edward, not quite looking at him. "I was never particularly close to Adewale back then, but I'm glad… well, it's nice knowing he wasn't looking at me the whole time knowing what I would do."

"It's hard," Edward says (because yes, it helps to know that at least he's helping Shay, but he's still going to make sure everyone knows what an effort this is for him).

"I appreciate the effort," Shay says, with more sincerity than Edward's whining complaint really warrants. "I'll buy you a drink next time we go out somewhere."

And that helps too.


	55. Chapter 55

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is completely, absolutely, 100% AU. Nothing in it actually happens.
> 
> Also, if you want to know what a Welsh Springer Spaniel looks like, [they](http://cdn-www.dailypuppy.com/media/dogs/anonymous/jenny_welsh_springer_spaniel_07.jpg) [look](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/c7/ed/23/c7ed23b6f1da3d1245b1e92b8190ac32.jpg) [like](http://www.bentonwss.com/kuvat/news2008/Harmi%202%204,5%20wks.jpg) [this](http://i.imgur.com/IPzcrc5.jpg) and they're super cute. :)

Edward wakes up with the disturbing feeling of having too many legs. This has never happened to him before.

He tries to jump up but stumbles as all four of his legs go flying in opposite directions, and he goes crashing nose first into the bed. It hurts, and when Edward opens his mouth a sad, whining noise trickles out of him. It has to be one of the most pathetic sounds Edward has ever heard, which doesn't make him feel any better.

There are way too many blankets on this bed, or maybe Edward is just suddenly way too small. After a little bit more effort he manages to get all his feet working and he sort of crawls out from underneath.

The world looks funny, but it smells really good. Edward takes a second to just stand where he is, trying to sort out everything he can suddenly smell. Which, for the record, _is everything_. His tail vibrates with excitement, and—

Tail?

He has a tail. That's fun. Edward half turns, trying to get a better look, and he falls over sideways instead. But at least now he's starting to put the pieces together and figure out that hey guess what for some reason he's a dog. He should probably be upset about that, people aren't supposed to turn into dogs, but when he's standing up he gets a good look at Haytham. It's been four years since they all came back to the future, and Edward still hasn't bothered moving out of Haytham's bedroom.

Which is great, because Haytham is his favorite person! In the whole world! Edward's whole brain just explodes into happiness and he tumbles across the bed, making a little yipping noise that means _happy, happy!_ His tail is wagging so hard Edward thinks it might just fly off completely, and he sticks his nose in Haytham's ear, licking his earlobe because he just loves Haytham so much and he's so happy he's here. Why is licking suddenly so great? Why is his tongue so enormous? It's so long, Edward can stick it all the way into Haytham's ear—

Haytham jerks awake and away from Edward's enthusiastic tongue, clapping a hand over his wet ear. He doesn't look happy to see Edward, so Edward jumps up on his lap and keeps yipping away until Haytham sighs and drops his hand from his ear to stroke Edward cautiously behind the ear. It feels _awesome!_

"What are you doing here, pup?" Haytham murmurs, but Edward isn't paying attention because he's suddenly realized that licking fingers is just as great as licking ears.

-//-

The dog is a Welsh Springer Spaniel, as best they can tell from a little bit of hasty internet research. He's probably about two months old, and full of an apparently endless amount of energy. The dog is _also_ Edward, something they figure out only by pure chance because Connor notices the dog starts barking (or _trying_ to bark—it's so tiny it can't manage more than an excited, high pitched yip) every time they say his name. Of course, the dog also barks at shoelaces, ringing phones, and his own reflection in the mirror, so honestly Haytham is surprised they figured it out at all.

But it's one of those things where as soon as Connor says it out loud, it's impossible to look at the dog and _not_ see Edward. There's something in the expression that's very familiar, something Haytham can't put his finger on but definitely recognizes. They spend a few days collectively scratching their heads and trying to figure out how Edward had come to be a dog, and how to change him back. But they have few leads to follow, it's disturbingly easy to just kind of let Edward stay a dog. Besides, Edward looks perfectly happy with his new canine form.

 _Almost_ perfectly happy, anyway.

The first time Haytham has to leave the house—he's meeting with a contact across town—Edward tries to follow him out. Haytham picks the squirming puppy up, ignoring the way Edward's enthusiastically trying to lick every inch of his skin he can reach, and gently but firmly deposits him back inside.

Edward dashes after him, skidding along the tile floor on paws he hasn't quite mastered yet, and crashes into Haytham's leg when he stops abruptly.

"You have to stay here," Haytham says, crouching down closer to Edward.

Edward looks up at him, eyes wide and pleading.

" _No_ ," Haytham says, and this time he takes Edward up the stairs to the first floor. Edward's whole body is shorter than a single step, and he hasn't actually figured out how to get up or down the stairs with his tiny legs yet. So he just stands there, whining and crying like the whole world is ending while Haytham leaves.

When he comes back, some four hours later, someone has brought Edward back down. The puppy is lying right next to the front door, head resting on his front paws, the very picture of dejected misery. Then he sees Haytham and leaps to his paws, barking and jumping up as high as he can get (almost to Haytham's knees), wagging his tail with frankly flattering enthusiasm.

It had been an unproductive meeting, and Haytham is perfectly happy to give Edward the attention he so obviously craves, scratching him in his favorite spot behind his ears while Edward sniffs at his palms.

For an entire week after that, Edward won't let Haytham out of his sight unless he absolutely has to. He continues to cry every time Haytham has to leave the safehouse, and if Haytham dares to so much as go to the bathroom, Edward will sit outside the door and wait impatiently until Haytham comes back out again.

At night, he sprawls out on the bed next to Haytham, snoring softly and twitching in his sleep. Haytham quickly gets used to the furry little lump sharing his bed, and doesn't even mind so much when Edward takes to waking him up every morning by nibbling at his ears.

-//-

Arno is surprised at first, of course, when he visits Edward and finds himself tied to a dog. "This is Edward?" he asks (more than once). "Really?"

"Really," Haytham says. "And your guess is as good as ours as to how he got that way."

Arno is silent for a minute, considering this. "It was probably Jacob's fault," he says. "I _told_ him messing with that Piece of Eden was a bad idea."

Haytham's eyebrows crawl higher up his forehead. "Alright," he says. "Possibly your guess is better than ours. What Piece of Eden?"

Arno shrugs, slightly uncomfortable. He lifts Edward up to his lap and strokes him with long, calming strokes until the puppy stops squirming and settles a little. "I showed up in the middle," he says. "But I guess Edward was supposed to be looking for some piece of Eden. It was…" He stops stroking Edward long enough to hold his thumb and forefinger about four inches apart. "This big? A little golden sphere. Kind of like a smaller apple, but without all the lines carved into it."

"Oh!" Aveline ducks her head into the room then, frowning. "We heard rumors about that a couple days before Edward…" she gestures helplessly at the puppy. Edward's eyes track her hand, or more likely, the sandwich she's currently holding. "Well, you know. I don't think we ever got a straight answer out of him whether or not he found it."

"I didn't hear about that," Haytham says.

"Well, no." Aveline smiles fondly at him, and puts a hand on his shoulder. Arno tries not to notice the way Haytham's face turns very slightly red. "This _was_ assassin business. Now it's visitor business." She turns back to Arno. "So he found it?"

"Yes," Arno says. "I got there when he and Jacob were taking turns daring each other to do stupid things with it."

"Of _course_ they were," Haytham mutters, dropping his head into his hands.

"And Jacob dared Edward to put it in his mouth," Arno says.

"Which of course he did," Haytham says, voice muffled by his hands.

"Of course," Arno agrees. "I think he almost swallowed it, actually, and anyway I was telling both of them it was a bad idea—" He hadn't objected all that much at the time, honestly. Jacob always seems to have that effect on him, making his stupid ideas seem much less stupid than they really are. It's only later, when the visit is over and Arno is alone again, that the full horror of whatever he's done typically hits him. But he'll gladly exaggerate how much he'd argued in front of Haytham. "So they stopped playing with it after that."

Edward whines in Arno's lap, and for a second Arno thinks the dog might feel bad for messing with the Piece of Eden. Then he realizes Edward is still staring at Aveline's sandwich.

She sighs and feeds him a piece, which satisfies him for the half second it takes to swallow it whole and go back to staring and whining.

"Is Jacob okay?" Arno asks. "I mean, _he_ didn't almost swallow the thing, I think he was just kind of throwing it around, and he was only visiting, but…"

Haytham raises his head again, a grim expression stamped across his face. "If he's okay now," he says. "He won't be after the next time he visits."

-//-

"Oh come _on_ ," Jacob says, looking up at Aveline from where he's sprawled out on the floor, enthusiastically rubbing Edward's stomach. "How was I supposed to know that thing was going to turn Edward into a dog?"

Edward barks and rolls over, shaking himself off before pouncing on Jacob and licking at every inch of his face he can reach. Jacob laughs and turns obligingly to let Edward lick more of him. This is _fantastic_ , he's going to have to talk to Evie about getting a dog on the train…

"Yes," Aveline says. "How could you possibly have foreseen that playing with a Piece of Eden would have bad consequences?"

"Edward started it anyway," Jacob says. Which is absolutely untrue, but Edward is the only other one that had been there before Arno showed up, and he's a dog so he can't exactly argue. "Why aren't you mad at him?"

Edward stops his aggressive licking, apparently distracted by his own madly wagging tail. Jacob and Aveline both watch in silence as he spins around in a tight circle, trying and failing to catch it. When he finally gives up and flops over on his side, looking hopefully up at the two of them for more belly rubs, Aveline laughs and shakes her head.

"Sorry, Jacob," she says. "I can't be annoyed at him while he looks like that."

Edward barks, and Jacob swears he sounds just the tiniest bit smug.

He'd be upset, except Aveline's right and it's absolutely impossible to be angry with a puppy this adorable. Just look at his little _face_.

-//-

Shay sometimes thinks he is the only one capable of looking past Edward's adorable puppy disguise to see the absolute terror he has always been and will always be. Today, for example, Shay is taking Edward for his first ever walk away from the safehouse. He's not entirely sure how he got roped into that particular task, especially since there are so many people that would have loved to do it. Elena in particular has been begging Desmond to let her take Edward out for every single day of the three months since Edward had spontaneously turned into a puppy. She'd give an arm and a leg to be here right now.

But no. Everyone else is busy, and Edward has taken to running apparently endless laps around and around the house, crashing into anyone and anything unfortunate enough to get in his way. Eventually Shay had gotten sick of Edward running into his ankles and told him to just calm down a second so they can go out on a walk.

Edward hadn't calmed, of course. If anything he'd gotten even more excited, barking and jumping at Shay's knees, refusing to hold still while Shay fixed his leash and collar. There had been a lot of discussion about the leash, and even more about the collar. It… does feel strange to put them on a dog that had once been human. Every time Shay tries to picture Edward as he had been, wearing the bright pink collar Elena had insisted on picking out for him, he gets a little uncomfortable. But honestly he's not sure he trusts Edward not to make a break for it without a leash, and so both it and the collar stay.

Altair has suggested taking him to the local pet store for obedience training on top of that. Shay is starting to think it would be a good idea.

But today they are not going to obedience training, they are going on a walk. For maybe a block, Edward is surprisingly well behaved. He sticks close to Shay, right up against his ankles, looking around at everything like he's never seen it before. To be charitable, Shay supposes everything must be much bigger for Edward right now than what he is used to.

The charitable thoughts stop at the same time Edward's good behavior does. After a block he starts to lag behind, burying his nose in every bush and clump of grass they pass. Shay finds himself tugging on the leash until Edward makes an annoyed grumbling noise and darts ahead as far as the leash will let him, where he goes right back to inhaling some new smell.

This is fine, Shay tries to tell himself. Slightly annoying, but… fine. Perfectly normal behavior for a dog. Or... human-turned-dog.

Then Edward starts peeing on everything he smells, lifting his leg and staring at Shay like he's _daring_ him to say something.

Shay averts his eyes and mumbles, "Don't make this weird, Edward."

This seems to only encourage Edward to make things weirder. Five steps on, he stops and takes a dump right next to Shay's shoes.

"God, Edward," Shay grumbles. Edward sits down, perfectly still for the first time since the walk started, and Shay swears the dog is smiling as Shay scoops the poo into a bag.

They go back to walking, and after five more minutes they come to a dip in the sidewalk. It had rained the night before, making a wide, muddy puddle almost as deep as Edward is tall.

Shay looks at the puddle.

Edward looks at the puddle.

Shay looks at Edward.

Edward looks at Shay.

"Don't you dare," Shay says.

Edward barks and takes off running, _straight_ into the puddle, rolling around in the water until he's completely covered in mud. When he trots back out with his tail held high and shakes himself off all over Shay's pants, Shay can't even bring himself to be surprised.

-//-

Most mealtimes, Edward skulks around the table, begging for scraps and generally making a nuisance of himself. Everyone at the table, including possibly Edward, knows that too much human food will only lead to Edward throwing up in the middle of the night. They've switched him to dog food because of that, which he'll usually eat without _too_ much whining, but that doesn't stop him from begging every single time someone so much as opens the refrigerator.

He usually gets at least something during meal times. There are so many of them at the safe house now that it actually takes them two tables pushed together to fit everyone, and a certain amount of mess is inevitable. And if all else fails there's always Elena, who hasn't yet been convinced it's better to eat her own vegetables than to sneak them to Edward. _A_ _nd_ Geraldine, who is two and throws more of her food than she typically manages to get in her mouth.

But today, someone's elbow jostles someone else just as they're lifting a plate heaped with food, and the whole thing goes flying.

"Puppy!" Geraldine shrieks, pointing at Edward and giggling as he charges at the feast that has just appeared on the floor in front of him. Everyone is shouting at once, it's pure chaos and that of course only seems to encourage Edward.

He's just managed to get his mouth around a chicken leg when Connor stands up. "Leave it," he calls to Edward, and for a long second he and Edward just stare at each other, Edward's whole body quivering in want. Then he very, _very_ reluctantly spits out the chicken and backs away. By now, the whole table is staring at Connor like he's just grown a second head. He can feel his ears getting warm from the attention, and wonders if he's done something wrong in trying to give Edward some training. He'd felt weird about it when he started, a month or so back now. That's why he hadn't told anyone. But there are definitely times when Edward seems to be running purely on canine instinct rather than actual human thought, and Connor wouldn't have put it past him to try to swallow the chicken leg whole, bones and all. It's for his own good, isn't it?

"Well done, Connor," Shay says, voice colored with appreciation as he ducks down to gather the scattered food.

"Sit," Connor says to Edward. "Stay."

Edward looks up at him and whines piteously, but doesn't move until Shay has cleaned up the last of the food, and dinner has resumed. Connor sits back down as the table erupts back into its normal, slightly more controlled chaos, and tries not to be too obvious about it as he drops a couple of french fries down to Edward. Not quite an entire chicken leg, perhaps, but at least this won't get Edward choking or throwing up.

"Good dog," he says quietly, and Edward curls up against his legs in hope of more droppings.

-//-

Desmond doesn't mind babysitting Geraldine when Shay and Aveline are both out. She and Elena are only two years apart, and when they're not bickering childishly (although in their defense they are, in fact, children) they get along really well. Today, Desmond ducks out of the room for a minute and comes back to find them huddled suspiciously in a corner. They'd been throwing Edward's ball for him to chase when he left, but now there's no sign of the dog and the girls look very definitely suspicious.

"Elena," Desmond calls. "What are you doing?"

She stiffens and looks back at him. "Nothing!"

Crap. Desmond knows _that_ tone, and it's far too innocent to actually be nothing. He heads over to the two of them, and finds them halfway through stuffing Edward into a doll's dress. For a second all of them just kind of look at each other, then Elena says, "He's _pretty,_ daddy!" and Geraldine shrieks in joy and leans over to wrap her arms around Edward. He squirms for a minute, trying to wiggle his way out of her grip and the dress at the same time, then gives up and looks up at Desmond with a _help me_ kind of look.

"I don't think he likes the dress, honey," Desmond says. "I think he'd like it better if you go back to playing fetch."

She grumbles a little, but Desmond helps her pull the dress off and when he leaves, Elena and Geraldine are throwing Edward's ball for him again, girls and dog all happy with the game. Desmond manages to get all the way to the kitchen and safely out of sight before he doubles over laughing.

-//-

"I don't think that's really appropriate," Shay says uncomfortably, and Aveline looks up from Edward and toward her husband.

"He's a dog," she says, and for just a second she's surprised by how matter of fact she can be about that. Four months ago she would have laughed at the very idea of one of her visitors spontaneously turning into a foot high puppy, but… well, if it had to be one of them, at least it's Edward. He's fallen quite naturally into being a dog, to the point where Aveline has caught herself once or twice thinking of him as exactly that, just a dog, like he'd never been human in the first place. She always feels guilty when she realizes her slip, but to be fair Edward makes it very easy to forget.

Right now, for instance, he's lying on his back with his tongue lolling out, eyes half closed in dazed enjoyment as Aveline rubs at his stomach.

"His mind's still human," Shay says, but there's a hint of doubt in his voice as he says it. There are certainly times when Edward seems to display intelligence higher than a dog's, but then there are also times when they'll run into another dog when they're out on a walk and Edward will cheerfully shove his nose into their butt to see what it smells like. "Look, Aveline, I just think we should consider that Edward _might_ be taking advantage of his current situation to… you know. Get you to do things he wouldn't if he was human. He _has_ tried to kiss you before."

Aveline tosses Shay a smile. She loves that he's so concerned for her, even after all their time together, even though they both know she can take care of herself. But she switches from rubbing Edward's stomach to scratching his ears. Just in case.

-//-

Adewale is not quite sure why his subconscious has added a small, shaggy puppy to his normal cast of hallucinations. His other hallucinations have tried to explain it to him, but frankly Adewale is tired of hearing their insane explanations for everything that happens. He hasn't exactly listened.

Besides, he's catching himself growing oddly fond of the puppy. It's proved itself a fiercely loyal companion, even waking Adewale once when he hadn't heard a group of templars sneaking in on the rooms he'd rented for the night. And the dog is so enthusiastically happy just to be around Adewale—it's weirdly gratifying to have won the dog's affections so quickly. On the other hand, the puppy has an apparently endless amount of energy to expel, and when they're on land he'll do the most embarrassing things.

For example, there was the time the dog chased a cat up a tree and then sat at the bottom, barking madly and trying to climb after it for a solid fifteen minutes. Adewale hadn’t understood the jeers and catcalls aimed toward him at the time. Since then, however, his hallucinations have explained that anything he sees one of his hallucinations do is actually something he himself is doing.

He still can't shake the embarrassment when he tries to imagine what he must have looked like to the people passing by.

But the dog isn't all bad. Today, for example, he is calm. He is always calm when Adewale is at sea. He'll make his way to the ship's edge, then look up at Adewale, pleading but unusually silent. Adewale has started keeping crates stacked up next to the rail, and he'll lift the dog up so he can see over the edge to watch the ocean. He'd worried at first (and how foolish, to worry over a dog that only exists in his imagination), but the dog never falls over the edge. Today, like every other day, he just sits perfectly still on the top crate, surveying the ocean, nose lifted just slightly to catch the smell of salt on the wind.

Adewale is _really_ starting to grow fond of the pup.

-//-

"Evie," Jacob whines. "Play with us!"

She looks over at the two of them, Jacob and Edward, both of them whining at her and doing their best to look pathetic. Edward, with his tail down between his legs and his ears drooping, does a much better job of it than Jacob.

"I've work to do, Jacob," she says. "And so do you."

"But he's visiting you!" Jacob protests. "I can't play with him unless you want to play too!"

"Then I suppose none of us gets to play," Evie says.

"Evie," Jacob protests. He falls backward onto her bed, as if the horror of _not being allowed to play_ is simply too much for him to bear. Edward scampers over to her legs, where he nudges at her foot with his nose and whimpers.

"No," Evie tells them both.

Edward throws back his head and howls in what sounds like pure misery but is more likely a great exaggeration.

"Edward—"

"A- _wooooooo_!" Jacob calls, throwing his head back and howling too. Edward's head snaps round to look at him, apparently confused.

"A- _wooo_ -wooo-wooo!" he howls, louder.

"You're probably saying something terribly insensitive in dog," Evie says, because as far as Jacob is concerned, 'terribly insensitive' is usually a safe bet. "And you're being a nuisance. We're not the only ones on this train, you know."

On cue, Henry sticks his head in. "Am I, um… am I interrupting something?"

Jacob howls again, and Evie shakes her head. "I'm sorry, Henry," she says. "Jacob's just decided to regress back to being four years old, apparently."

"Ah," Henry says, like this is nothing particularly noteworthy. Which it's not, really. But he smiles back at her, and Evie's stomach flips. "Well, maybe I had better save my business for later, anyway."

Evie nods and lets him go without protest. Quite frankly he doesn't need to be here to see Jacob pretending to be a dog. When he's gone, Jacob gets off the bed and sits on the floor next to Edward, leaning on Evie's chair and tilting his head back to look at her. "Please play with us?" he says. " _Pleeeeeeease_ , Evie? The train's about to pass a park…"

She looks down at them, and maybe it's the almost identically pleading puppy dog looks on their faces that does it. "Fine," she says, and she gathers Edward securely in her arms before she and Jacob leap from the train and head to the nearest available green space.

It's not quite as bad an afternoon as Evie had been expecting. Edward is... well, as far as dogs go he is a nice one. And Jacob and Edward do most (but... perhaps not all) of the running and playing, leaving Evie to enjoy an unusually relaxing afternoon in the shade of a tree. The next weekend when Jacob rescues a drowning puppy on his way back from an assassination, Evie says nothing about it taking up residence in Jacob's compartment.

He names it Greenie, because of course he does. Poor Henry.

-//-

Ezio likes Edward rather more as a human than as a dog. He can appreciate why Edward as a puppy is gradually growing on the others, but the thing is, Ezio is allergic to dogs. It's not as bad as it could be. Claudia had been allergic as well, and Ezio remembers his sister getting short of breath every time she so much as entered a building where a dog lived. Ezio just feels like he's about to get a cold every time he goes anywhere near Edward, which is irritating but survivable. He takes allergy pills and things mostly go alright.

Every once in a while though, when Ezio comes back from an extended mission and forgets to take his pills, or when they run out and he has to go without for a few days, Ezio's allergies will flare back up with a vengeance.

"This is all your fault," Ezio tells Edward on such a day, when he's curled up on the couch with snot running unattractively from his nose and his eyes going red and watery. He reaches for a tissue and Edward jumps up on his lap. Edward puts his paws on Ezio's chest and licks at his chin and mouth in what is either meant to be an apology or a deliberate attempt to make Ezio's allergies even worse.

"You were a better kisser when you were human," Ezio says, and sneezes.

-//-

Altair draws the short straw when it's time to take Edward to the vet. Edward keeps trying to jump into Altair's lap during the drive over, which… well, to be fair that's not very different from his behavior when he's human. There's a reason Edward is typically exiled to the back seat. It's even worse when he's a dog, though, and Altair spends most of the drive over with one hand on the wheel and the other forcibly holding Edward down on the passenger seat.

"I'm buying you a cage," Altair says at one point, but it's an empty threat and he knows it. Whatever form he's in now, Edward is still one of them. Altair could never lock a visitor up like that. Finally, _mercifully,_ they reach the vet's office and Altair gets a secure hold on Edward's leash before trying to open the door—Edward immediately bolts past him, jumps to the ground, and stops short when he reaches the end of the leash. Then he looks back at Altair, almost accusing. "Come on," Altair says, and leads him in.

Something about the vet's waiting room seems to terrify Edward. He skulks close to Altair as he signs in, then hides behind his legs when Altair sits down to wait for their turn. He can feel Edward shaking against him, and feels suddenly guilty for threatening Edward with the cage on the way over.

Finally it's their turn, and in the examination room Altair talks briefly to the vet about how Edward needs some vaccinations.

"He's very behind," the vet says, when Altair tells him Edward hasn't had any at all yet.

"We, ah—found him," Altair says. "And we're still trying to catch up on everything we're supposed to do for him."

He thinks the vet still looks very judgmental, but at least he accepts the explanation. Which is good—the last thing any of them wants is for Edward to catch some horrible dog disease and die, hence this visit. It's been nearly six months since Edward's stupid messing around with a Piece of Eden had changed him into a dog, and none of them has any idea how to change him back. They don’t even know where Edward had put the Piece after apparently trying to swallow it. Maybe he _had_ swallowed it, and it's still sitting there in his stomach. Altair briefly considers asking the vet for an x-ray, but decides that even Edward would probably be too smart to actually eat a Piece of Eden.

Probably. Human Edward, anyway. Puppy Edward will eat anything, including chewed up gum and goose poop.

There are a lot of shots after that. Edward whimpers and whines and cries, folding into himself, tucking his tail down, even slinking close to Altair in search of comfort, which means he must be _really_ scared. Altair does his best to make him feel better, but he's never been good, either with comfort or with dogs. He's afraid he's only making things worse, and wishes Haytham had come instead.

When the shots are done, the vet looks up at Altair and says (in an absolutely casual tone), "Have you considered having him neutered? There are a lot of overall health and behavioral benefits, and—"

"No," Altair says, and Edward almost falls over in what must be relief.

-//-

Edward waits until the whole house is sleeping before jumping quietly off Haytham's bed an onto the floor. Under the bed, deep in the shadows where it had rolled six months ago, he finds the Piece of Eden he'd found with Jacob. For a little while he studies it, head resting on his paws, trying to make up his mind. Then he very slowly starts nudging it away from the bed.

It would be faster to carry the Piece in his mouth, but frankly that's what had started all this in the first place. It would be bad to wake up tomorrow human again, to have to give up playing fetch and getting cuddled, or having (almost) everyone smile when they see him. Even Shay, who Edward annoys teasing, and Ezio, who keeps sneezing on him, seem happier when he's around. It's not all good, being a dog, but Edward likes it well enough for now. Besides, there's always the chance that sticking the thing in his mouth wouldn't actually turn him human after all. Maybe it would turn him into a cat this time (and every part of Edward's mind that is _dog_ growls in outrage at the idea). Or a goldfish.

Of a _dinosaur_! That would be cool. Or—

No, no—focus. It's hard to focus as a dog, that's one thing he doesn't like. Not that there's much to focus on, mostly just eating and sleeping and being unconditionally loved by everyone around him. But right now he does need to focus, he needs to get this thing out of the house before anyone wakes.

Lion is awake, and Edward gives Elena's cat a wide berth as he nudges the Piece of Eden down the stairs with his nose. It thumps and crashes all the way down, and then Lion hisses at Edward and he gets very briefly—

Okay, maybe not so briefly—

Distracted chasing the cat away. He loves chasing cats, it's pretty much his favorite thing. His favorite thing along with playing fetch, and stealing food from the table, and going for car rides (but _not_ to the vet), and getting his ears scratched, and getting his belly rubbed, and eating treats, and taking naps, and rolling around on the grass, and finding new smells to sniff, and licking ears, and sniffing butts, and his people coming home, and running, and barking and _all his other favorite things!_

Oops. Piece of Eden, right.

The hard part is getting it out through the dog door. Connor had insisted on that getting put in a while ago, and it's another one of Edward's favorite things. He likes being able to go outside when he wants to, and even though Connor is the only one that can make him sit and stay and lie down when he doesn't want to, he still likes Connor because he's the one that put the dog door in. Altair said it wasn't safe, because what if thieves or Abstergo people come, but Connor said well this is a house full of assassins and templars so let's see how far they get.

Then they put the dog door in.

Eventually Edward manages to push the Piece of Eden through the dog door into the back yard. He pushes it all the way to the far corner, and digs the deepest hole he can. He digs until he's about to fall in, and then he pushes the Piece under the dirt and buries it again. There. Now it's safe, and only Edward knows where it is. If he ever changes his mind and wants to be human again, he can come back and dig the Piece back up. There's always the chance they'll have to pack up and move to a new safehouse before then, but Edward's not too worried. He'll figure something out.

He runs back inside (stops to chase the cat again), and then jumps back into bed with Haytham. He stretches out next to his _favorite person in the whole wide world_ , and feels happy all the way through, from his floppy ears to the tip of his tail. People don't feel happy like this, people worry their way through life. Edward has lots of favorite things about being a dog but his favorite- _favorite_ thing is this. The way he feels like he's sinking down into an ocean of happy, like it's just washing over him and filling him up, like there's no bad things in the whole world that can touch him. And even if there were, his people are here to protect him. And Edward loves and trusts them, wholeheartedly and absolutely without question, with more devotion than a human could ever manage.

Haytham's smell ( _favorite smell!_ ) drifts out around him and Edward relaxes into the familiarity of it. His eyes slide closed, and he drifts off to sleep, fully and completely happy in the way that only dogs can be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shh, sneaking in a picture of [my dog](http://i.imgur.com/ulPIcIn.jpg) because I really miss her now. Hi, Harriet!


	56. Chapter 56

Jacob's been itching to take over Evie's body since the first time she told him not to. Honestly he's not sure why she'd bothered, they both know telling him not to do something is the most surefire way to make sure he does exactly that. But… well, it had been something he wanted to do from the beginning, but after borrowing Arno's body Jacob can't stop thinking what it would be like to be Evie.

Well, not _be_ Evie. Jacob knows he'll never really be his sister, in some ways they're different as night and day. He doesn't really want to be Evie, but he wants to know what it's like to see the world through her eyes. Being Arno had felt different from being himself, and Jacob wants to know… well, it can't be all that different, can it? Being in Evie's body. Because she's _Evie_ , she's his sister. They came from the same place and grew up together and he just wants to make sure Evie is as much like him as he's always thought.

It's a nagging worry in the back of his head, and Jacob can't get rid of it no matter how hard he tries to forget, or tell himself that it doesn't matter. Because it _definitely_ matters.

But Evie is on guard against him whenever he visits her, and Jacob has only ever done this whole body stealing thing once before. He can't take her over while she's consciously trying to keep him out, and the looks she gives him tell Jacob she knows he's trying. "Don't," she keeps telling him. "Jacob, I'm serious."

"I'm serious too!" he always tells her. "Evie, just let me try for one minute!"

"One minute is more than enough for you to make trouble," she tells him every single time.

But tonight, Jacob has come to visit an Evie that is asleep. He can just barely see her in the shadows of the train, fast asleep on her bed with an unusual look of peaceful contentment on her face. Really, Jacob should feel bad about what he's about to do. Because she will inevitably wake up and realize what he's done, and then she'll be mad, and maybe it's not right to interrupt such a rare moment of peace.

Fuck it, he's doing it anyway.

He holds his breath as he pushes his consciousness into Evie's body, praying the act of switching won't wake her up. It doesn't—when Jacob opens his ( _Evie's!_ ) eyes again he sees she's moved to where he was standing. But she's still asleep, a dim and barely visible lump on the floor.

Jacob sighs in relief and tries to take in what it's like to be Evie. His first impression is that it's… comfortable. Evie is less muscled than him, slighter. She's—er—well, she's a woman. Jacob tries very hard not to think about the sudden additions to his general chest area. Or the subtraction from his _down there_ area. It helps that she's his sister, and therefore very definitely not someone he's interested in. Not in that way, anyway. He tries to force his mind away from all the parts of Evie she would probably castrate him for looking at, but it's hard because for some reason she's naked. Jacob had shared a room with his sister for most of their lives, and he can't remember her ever sleeping naked then. Maybe it's just because she's _not_ sharing a room with him that she feels safe taking her clothes off. At least there are blankets on the bed, so it almost feels like not being naked.

His mind drifts away. Even though things are different, being Evie still feels like being himself. In some weird way that goes beyond the merely physical, they're the same. Good. That's what he always thought, but it's nice to have the confirmation. They're twins, they should be the same.

Jacob shifts a little under the blankets, comfortable and happy. He briefly considers letting Evie have her body back. That would be the smart thing to do, put her back where she's supposed to be before she wakes up. This way she won't have to know and she won't be mad at him.

Right. So it's a good thing Jacob's always been so good at making the smart decision.

He's had his share of sleepless nights lately, and Evie's bed is easily the most comfortable place to sleep on the train. She can have one night on the floor, it's only fair. Jacob closes his eyes and starts to drift off. He'll sleep as long as this visit (or Evie) lets him, and then she can have her precious body back. Good, that's settled.

He's very nearly asleep when someone puts their hand on his back. It's not Evie, because Evie would be shouting at him. And anyway Evie's hand wouldn't feel like this on his back, warm and inviting—intimate, even.

Jacob has had this dream before. He'd never tell Arno he dreams about him, but he does. Jacob rolls over, not thinking about anything but the comfort of his bed and the familiar dream of Arno's arms on him, and tilts his head forward. Then there are lips on his, and they're warm and real and alive in a way that dream Arno never is. Jacob kisses back, and it's beautiful, it's perfect, he's so, so happy…

" _Evie_ ," Arno moans, only Jacob's not Evie and _it's not Arno's voice_.

Jacob yells and jerks away, eyes flying open as he almost tumbles off the bed. This, of course, wakes Evie. She surges to her feet to grab him and suddenly Jacob is being pinned to the ground by his sister, both of them currently naked and more identical than usual. It's not at all important right now, but some stupid part of Jacob is thinking that wow, he actually knows people that would pay quite a lot of money to see this fight.

A light flickers on somewhere in the compartment, and Jacob and Evie look up to see Desmond (oh God, _he's_ naked too) perched uncomfortably on Evie's bed. So that's who he'd kissed. Oops.

"Which one are you?" Evie demands. "Which visitor are—" and Jacob is just thinking that maybe the best choice is to just stay still and silent until his visit ends so she won't be able to figure out who he is, she snorts and rolls off him. "Jacob," she says. "Of course."

"How'd you know?" he asks, and hears Evie's voice comes out. It sounds different coming from his own mouth. Jacob makes a face, and Evie makes the same one.

"Because who else would do this?" she asks, gesturing between them. "Jacob, give me my body back."

"How badly are you going to hurt me when you don't have to worry about scarring your own body?" Jacob asks.

"If you don't give it back, I'm just going to go find the Jacob that's not visiting and take my frustration out on him," Evie says. Jacob opens his mouth to ask what _frustration_ means in this case, then decides that maybe he's better off not knowing.

"I don't know if this is my past or my future," he says instead. "He might not have done anything yet." This is a lie—if Evie and Desmond are still sleeping together, this is definitely the past. But he doesn't really want Evie pinning down when he's from and taking revenge on him when she catches up to him.

"Oh, I'm sure he's done something," Evie says darkly. "Body. Now."

Jacob decides that all told, it's probably a good idea to do as she says without arguing for now. He rolls over and out of her, and in the next second she punches him. "Owww," Jacob complains, and she rolls her eyes. "I can't leave," he says. "In case that's what you were planning to suggest next. I'm visiting you, remember?" His eyes stray sideways to Desmond, who is very determinedly not looking at them. His face is red as a tomato. "I can close my eyes, though."

"I'm pretty sure we're donenfor the night," Evie says. Then she softens a little. "Sorry, Desmond."

Desmond's eyes flick sideways to look at the siblings, then away again. "It's okay," he says. "I'm just not used to being on this side of the awkwardly dropping in on people having sex."

"That's fair," Jacob says. "This has all been very uncomfortable for everyone involved, so I think the best thing to do would just be to forgive and forget."

Evie gives him a look that says clearly that's not going to happen, and stands up to dress.


	57. Chapter 57

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I remembered at like 11:35 that it's Desmond's birthday today (thank you tumblr) and figured I'd just write something quick and fluffy to mark the occasion. And it's 11:59 so HA IT'S STILL HIS BIRTHDAY I MADE IT.

It's quiet in the safehouse when Desmond gets home. His last mission had been long and frankly a lot more dangerous than he'd been expecting, and getting home at last is a relief. It's a day or two later than he'd expected to be back. Or… maybe three? For almost a week he's been running for his life and only this morning had he been able to lose the men Abstergo had sent after him. At this point, all he knows is it's probably still March. Could be April, though. Feels like he's been running forever…

He's nursing several fresh and badly bandaged injuries, and there's blood on his clothes. Desmond thinks longingly of a shower, but the pipes her rattle and he'll wake the others if he tries to wash now. No, for now he'll just go to bed, try to get a few hours rest before he has to wake up and debrief with the other assassins.

But he can't sleep in his own room. Elena will be there, and Desmond doesn't want her to wake in the morning and see him like this, covered in blood and sweat and dirt. He remembers William coming home like that once or twice when he'd been Elena's age, and it had only made the man even more terrifying than usual. The last thing he wants after all this is to scare his daughter.

He heads to his room anyway, because he can at least change into fresh clothes. Desmond keeps the light off and heads right for the closet. He's just managed to find something clean and vaguely comfortable when he feels a pair of tiny arms close around his waist.

Desmond freezes for a second, fighting off the instinct to fight back. He's been doing nothing else for days, it would be so easy to lash out. But—no, this isn't an attack, this is…

"You came home, daddy."

Desmond reaches across the wall and flicks on the light before turning around. It's Elena, of course it is, and she's hugging him tight. Desmond kneels down in front of her, searching her face for fear. But she hardly seems to notice how dirty he is, she's just looking at him with the same expression of love and trust that she always does. And maybe that's the difference. William Miles had terrified Desmond on a regular basis. Elena, however, is not afraid of _her_ father.

"What are you still doing up?" he asks, because it's dead quiet in the house, still and dark and silent, and even as he asks the question Elena yawns and lets go of him to rub at her eyes.

"I had to wait for you," she says. "Grandpa says it's your birthday."

Is it? Desmond really has no idea what the date is. "You didn't have to stay up," he says.

"I made you a card," she says, and darts away to grab a folded piece of paper from the bed. Desmond looks down at it, and tries to ignore the lump in his throat. Elena is only three, and objectively no more gifted at coloring than any other three year old. But to his eyes, the scribbly crayon drawing of a cake and balloons is the finest piece of art he's ever seen. Someone—Haytham, by the handwriting—has written _happy birthday_ on the inside of the card, although it's hard to tell under all of Elena's coloring.

He leans down and hugs her, and she hugs him back, and the worries of the last few days just seem to slip away from Desmond. "Thank you," he says.

"I love you, daddy."

"I love you too," Desmond says. "Always."

He turns off the light and shoos her into bed—when she insists, he crawls in next to her and settles in. Elena leans against his side, thumb in her mouth as her eyes slowly close. Her other hand grabs a fist full of Desmond's filthy clothes and hold on tight. Desmond wraps an arm around her to hold her close and secure against him. He half thinks of putting her card somewhere it won't get wrinkled or dirty, but then he thinks maybe he should just close his eyes, just for a second—

He falls asleep at once, and sleeps deeply until morning.


	58. Chapter 58

Edward looks out of place in his mansion, his comfortable home in London.

"More landlocked than I'd have expected," Adewale says when his old friend comes out to greet him. He's here on assassin business, but he can't pretend he's not happy to see Edward again. No doubt that will fade with time—Edward has always been a bit of a child, something it's easier to look at fondly when there's a bit of distance between them.

"More landlocked than I'd like," Edward says. "But there are some advantages." He gestures for Adewale to follow him deeper into the house. Or mansion, maybe—that, at least, is the kind of melodramatic overkill Adewale expects from his old captain.

"Advantages?" he asks.

"The kids, mostly," Edward says. "Can't imagine being a father on the _Jackdaw_ , but here…" He shrugs.

"Kids," Adewale echoes. He's met Jennifer, but—"As in, more than one of them?"

"Right," Edward says. "You haven't met Haytham." He raises his voice and calls "Haytham!" at the top of his lungs.

"Dad!" someone shouts back from upstairs. It sounds like a girl's voice, and it sounds annoyed. Jennifer, Adewale assumes.

Edward ignores her. "Haytham!" he calls again, and this time a little boy about five years old comes running downstairs. He runs carefully though, holding onto the bannister with one small hand.

"Father?" he says, running to Edward and half hiding behind his leg. He looks up at Adewale, eyes wide as saucers. Adewale does his best not to tower over the boy.

"This is a very good friend of mine," Edward says, leaning down to point a hand on his son's shoulder. "Ade."

"He's big," Haytham whispers.

"Because he ate everything on his plate at supper and didn't feed any of it to the dog," Edward says.

"But Thatch likes my vegetables and I _don't_ ," Haytham says.

Adewale smiles softly. Of course Edward had named his dog for _Blackbeard_ , of all people.

Edward grins, and looks up at Adewale. "Well, I tried," he says. "Can't argue with logic like that, can I?"

Adewale wishes he could be surprised at the sight of a five year old winning an argument against Edward, but really it's not all that surprising.

"I'm going to try and drag Jenny down here," Edward says, already halfway up the stairs. "You two make friends!" And then he's gone, and Adewale is left looking down at Haytham, who looks like he's trying very hard to be brave.

"Father is silly sometimes," he says. "But he has good friends. So… you're nice, right?"

"I try," Adewale says. He bends down to Haytham's level, and the boy backs up a nervous step or two. "Haytham," he says. The boy nods. "Is your father happy here? Does he take care of himself?"

"I think so," Haytham says, screwing up his face in concentration. "But sometimes… I think he's a little sad. He takes me to the river sometimes to watch the boats. Then he's happy."

Adewale nods. He can't help worrying about Edward, trapped on land when he's always been happiest at sea. "But he's _mostly_ happy?"

"Mostly," Haytham says.

"Good." He smiles a little. "Take care of your father, alright?"

"Alright."

"Promise?"

Haytham nods, head bobbing up and down. "Promise."

-//-

Adewale is either visiting Haytham or Edward, he isn't sure which and so far neither of them has noticed him. Probably Edward, then—Haytham wouldn't ignore the feelings that come with hallucinations, he'd have sought Adewale out at once.

Edward is asleep at the kitchen table, an empty bottle at his elbow. Adewale watches in silence as Haytham wakes his father and gets him to his feet. Edward is obviously drunk (Adewale recognizes the signs well), and it takes a good deal of cajoling on Haytham's part to get him moving toward a bedroom. But finally they start in the right direction, Edward leaning against Haytham's shoulder as they walk.

Adewale trails them to the door of Edward's bedroom, but stops just outside. Edward has decided this would be a good time to take off his pants, and Adewale knows from experience where _that_ always leads.

He waits patiently for the hallucination to end. He waits a long time, and eventually Haytham comes out, looking haggard. "Oh," he says. "I didn't realize you were here."

"I am," Adewale says.

"So I see."

They survey one another in silence for a while, then Adewale jerks his head toward Edward's room. "Is he alright?"

Haytham nods, a single quick jerk of the head. "I'm taking care of him," he says. "You needn't worry."

"You are," Adewale says. "Aren't you?"

"Of course," Haytham says, and Adewale must be visiting Edward because Haytham marches off then, leaving Adewale leaning next to the doorframe, thinking about long ago promises.


	59. Chapter 59

Desmond isn't sure, but he _thinks_ this is what being in love feels like. He'd heard somewhere, a long time ago now, that you know you're in love when all the old songs make sense. And they do—when he's with Evie, they make sense. He feels like she's the sun, and he's never known what it's like to be warm until he met her. Like she'd been made for him, and he for her.

But she's dead. Desmond knows she's dead because that's how visiting works. She is real and alive to him, and to all the other visitors, but to the rest of the world…

It will never work, he keeps reminding himself. This isn't like Shay and Aveline, who had met through visits but at least been able to meet in person. Evie is old enough to be Desmond's great-great-grandmother. All they will ever have are visits, and Desmond knows that won't be enough for her. Evie is practical, she'll see the distance between them as… as insurmountable, something they'd be stupid to try and overcome.

And that's assuming she even feels the same way for him as he feels for her. Which is… stupid, obviously. Someone like her isn't going to fall in love with someone like him. He's… ragged around the edges. He's missing an arm. He's nothing very special at all.

And she's asleep on his bed, curled up in the same position she's been in since her visit began. It's half past two in the afternoon, and there's no reason for Desmond to be in bed himself. He wants to be, though. He keeps glancing at the clock and cursing the time of day—how many middle of the night visits has he had where Edward or Ezio showed up and attached themselves to him? Desmond tries to imagine Evie asleep beside him, then feels guilty and tries to stop. Then—

Evie opens her eyes and sits up, rubbing the sleep off her face. "Hey," she says. "Desmond."

"Hey." His voice is dry. "Evie."

"You didn't wake me."

"Was I supposed to? I mean… you looked tired."

She smiles at him, and kind of jerks her head toward the bed. "Come here," she says.

He suddenly feels glued to his chair. "But—I really shouldn't. It's not…"

"Oh." Evie seems to consider his words for a while longer than Desmond thinks is strictly necessary. "You're not there yet?"

"Not where yet?"

"I suppose you wouldn't know, would you?" Evie bites her lip. "If you're not there, you wouldn't know you're not there."

"Evie…" he hesitates, not sure if she'll take this as an insult. "I don't want to be rude, but you sound a little like Edward right now."

That forces a surprised laugh out of her, and Desmond is surprised at how quick her smile is. "Well, heaven forbid I sound like Edward," she says.

Desmond realizes he's smiling too, not because there's anything particularly funny about Evie sounding like Edward but just because _she's_ smiling and seeing her happy just makes him light up in ways he can't stop. Evie gets off the bed and walks over to Desmond. He goes stiff and still and tries not to look at her, because he knows that if he does she'll be able to see everything he feels for her stamped across his face. And he's not sure what he would do if she laughed, if she told him she doesn't feel the same.

"Hey," Evie says. "Desmond, look at me."

And Desmond can't stop himself, it's just so easy to look up at her—but what he sees there takes his breath away.

Evie is not a soft person. She's made up of hard edges and sharp angles. She's a woman in a time when being a woman was not the best thing you could be. She's a fighter, an assassin, and fiercely protective of those that need protective. But Desmond counts himself lucky to have gotten the occasional glimpse of a softer Evie, an Evie that can let her guard down once in a while, who can smile and laugh, who cares with all she has for her family. Those are the moments that made Desmond fall in love with her in the first place—or started it, anyway. Because he's fallen hard and fast for her, sharp edges and all, and he can't imagine stopping.

The look on Evie's face at this moment is not one Desmond has seen before. She's looking at him with a special kind of intensity, like there's no one else in the world but the two of them. And her face is set in determination but her eyes are kind and loving. "You're not there yet," she says again.

"Um…" Desmond isn't thinking particularly well just at this moment. "What?"

And then Desmond isn't sure how it happens exactly but she's kissing him. He doesn't react at all for a very long time, because… because this isn't _possible_ , he's dreaming or dead or something, he must be, but—

But the dream doesn't end, he doesn't wake up, and Evie is still there. Desmond gasps against her and leans closer, kisses her back. She's still standing and he's frozen on his chair and it's not a great position for kissing—somehow he ends up on his feet, his arm wrapped around Evie as she smiles against him.

Then she pulls away, just a fraction. She's still close enough to overwhelm Desmond with her proximity, still close enough that she's all he can see. "You're there now," she says. "You're here."

And Desmond laughs when he gets it. He's here, and he doesn't know exactly what that means. He doesn't know if this is the start of a relationship, he doesn't know how long it lasts or when Evie is visiting from, doesn't know how serious she is about this. But he can worry about that later, there will be plenty of time to talk—there's almost no one in the world Desmond would rather talk to than Evie. For now all he knows is that _he's here_ , and there's nowhere else he'd rather be.


	60. Chapter 60

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to the reviewer that suggested putting Elena through the bleeding effect. :)
> 
> Also, warning: A large chunk of this chapter is Elena reliving Desmond's memories, including her own conception, so... sort of incest warning, I guess. Nothing explicit.

There are three safe houses that the group returns to again and again, as well as half a dozen places they'll use once and never go back to. But it's those three main safe houses that really feel like _home_ to Elena. She likes coming back to them, and today she doesn't even mind that she's spending her seventeenth birthday cleaning up one of these safe houses and getting ready for everyone to move back in soon.

It's just her and Altair today. Elena is not allowed to know where everyone else is, even though she's a novice now, officially. She's come to terms with the fact that she'll never really know what her grandpa and Shay do, because templars. But it's really not fair that she isn't allowed to know _anything_ about what the others are doing. Even her dad will usually just say something vague and brush her off.

They've actually argued about it, a couple of times.

The two of them never argue.

She's working upstairs and Altair is downstairs. It's not exactly hard work. Lots of dusting, opening things, airing them out, making sure nothing's taken up residence since they were last in the area. It's familiar work, absolutely routine. Elena does the bedrooms, skips past the room she's not allowed into, looks into the nearest bathroom to see how gross it's gotten (answer: yuck) and—

She's headed back downstairs to find the bleach when for some reason she actually stops in front of the room she's not allowed into and looks at it. She remembers being told, when she was… maybe four or five, that she's absolutely never allowed into the room. She hadn't asked for an explanation then, and hasn't really thought about it since.

Today, she does. Maybe it's just because she's still upset about not being allowed to know what's going on that she takes out her lock picks (Connor has been teaching her to use them—Edward tried to help, once, but his approach to opening locked stuff is just kick it really hard). Elena isn't great with locks but this is an easy one, and she has the door open in less than a minute.

Just as the door swings open, Elena feels a little thrill of excitement and power rush through her. Growing up in a house full of assassins (and templars) means she understands that rules are usually in place for her own protection. Don't touch the blades unless you know how to use them. Don't break curfew because hey yea there's actually people out there that would love to kill your whole family. Stuff like that.

Breaking this rule feels better than Elena had expected it to. "I don't really do this," she says, without turning around. "Breaking the rules."

"It's a slippery slope," Jacob says behind her. Elena had felt one of her visitors arrive, but hadn't known who it was until Jacob actually speaks. "I know I've been a right terror to Anne, growing up."

"Yea, well, she was a pirate, wasn't she?" Elena asks. Jacob comes to stand next to her, and the two of them peer into the forbidden room. "It would have been a bit hypocritical of her to complain, wouldn't it?"

Jacob shrugs. "She didn't really _complain_ ," she says. "But I was running around in pants, drinking with the boys and hanging around the docks all the time. I know she must have worried."

"Well," Elena says. "I don't think anyone will worry about me just going into a room in our own safehouse." She takes a cautious step inside, then feels around until she finds a light switch.

"What is it?" Jacob asks, following her in.

"I… have no idea." The room is small, barely more than a closet, and almost full of computers. Old ones that look like they’ve been there maybe longer than Elena's been alive. And in the center, a red chair. Jacob pokes at it, and Elena frowns. It's definitely the weirdest chair she's ever seen, complete with a kind of brace on one armrest. It looks like one of those things that's supposed to measure blood pressure, but it has to be more than that, right? Why else keep this room locked?

"Elena!"

She turns when she hears Altair's voice but he's faster than her, and grabs her around the upper arm before she can stop him. "Hey," Elena says. "Hey, stop—you're hurting me!"

But Altair doesn't let go until they're back in the hallway, and then he _glares_ at her. "What were you doing in there?" he asks.

"I don't—"

"Elena!"

She jumps back, grateful for Jacob's hand on her back. "I just wanted to know what was in there," she says. "What was that thing?"

Altair's expression is stony, and she doesn't really expect him to answer. But he does. After quite a long pause, he says, "It's called an animus."

"That doesn't sound like a real thing," Elena says after a pause. "What kind of name is _animus_?"

"Abstergo came up with it."

"Ah." Well, that explains things. "What's it do?"

"It… lets you see history from your ancestors' point of view. You see what they see, hear what they hear. Feel what they feel."

"Like Helix," she says.

"It's what they used before Helix," Altair says. "I don't want to see you near it again."

"Okay."

"Really?" Altair gives her a look of supreme skepticism that Elena 100% deserves. This animus thing sounds _awesome_ , and just because she doesn't intend to let Altair see her near it doesn't mean she's not going to give it a shot as soon as she figures out how it works. She's been visiting, sure, that's one way to see history. But this? It sounds totally different and honestly pretty cool. And anyway, figuring this stuff out can't be that hard, right? The computers running it look, like, fifteen or twenty years old.

"Really," she lies.

Altair closes the door and locks it again, and then leaves.

"So you're definitely going to use that thing, right?" Jacob asks. She sounds curious, and a little excited.

"Soon as I can," Elena says. She's still sort of thinking about history, but she's also thinking about the brief feeling of power that had come just from breaking into the room. And her dad won't tell her about anything actually important, _no one_ will. Maybe she just wants to feel powerful like that again, she wants to do something she knows she's not supposed to.

So she spends the next month or so breaking into the room with the animus whenever she can, messing with the computers, figuring out how they work. And it's really not all that hard, the technology is pretty out of date. Then it's just a waiting game.

Finally, there comes a day when Elena is alone in the safehouse, and one of her visitors is around to keep an eye on things.

"I don't think this is a good idea," Matthew says.

"But you'll help me anyway, right?" Elena asks.

He sighs, and gives her a look of concern that makes Elena love him even more. "I'll help," he says. "But only because I don't want you doing this alone."

"It'll be okay," Elena promises. She messes with the computers another few seconds, making final adjustments. She's decided to start with her dad, because it turns out it's easiest to find ancestors closely related to her. This will be a good trial run. When that's done, she lies back on the animus. Matthew leans over her, and brushes a quick kiss across her forehead.

"I love you," he says, serious and quiet.

"I'm not dying," Elena laughs. And then she settles back, and closes her eyes, and lets herself slip away.

It's a little bit like falling asleep, at first. Bits of herself falling away, into darkness. And then she opens her eyes, and…

She's lying in a sleeping bag, somewhere dark. The ground under her back is hard, and she has ten fingers.

For some reason, that's important. She can't stop thinking about it, keeps twitching her fingers _one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten_ to prove that they're all still there, that she's still herself. Not Altair, not—

What?

Also, how weird is _that_ , to see (be?) her dad with both his arms, never mind all his fingers.

"Hey, Desmond."

She sits up, slow and reluctant, and turns around. It's Rebecca, Elena recognizes her right away even though she looks younger and more worried than Elena is used to. "Hey, Becca," Elena says, but it's her dad's voice that comes out of her mouth, it's croaky and hoarse. Elena wonders if he's sick.

For a second they both just look at each other, and in the pause Elena looks around as much as she can. It's too dark to really tell where they are, but it's got a sort of musty smell to it, like a cave.

Then she opens her mouth (and it's _weird_ how that happens, the way everything she says and does feels like her own idea, even though she can feel it coming from somewhere inside her, something that… isn’t her). "It's supposed to be my day off," Elena says.

"I know, I know." Rebecca gives her a sympathetic look that doesn't actually help the panic clutching suddenly at Elena's chest or the way her hands shake. "But Lucy says we're on a tight schedule, and…" She trails off.

"Oh," Elena says.

Rebecca helps her stand, then steps back. "I'll be back by the animus," she says. "You can take your time getting ready."

Animus? Elena perks up a bit, curious. So, the animus is so bad Altair had almost pulled her arm off to keep her away from it, but her dad had used it, too? Something's off, here.

"I'll—it'll be a few minutes," Elena says, but it comes out more like a question, like she's asking permission or begging a favor.

Rebecca nods and leaves her alone. Elena starts to dress, very slowly, the way she had when she was a kid, and pouting about being forced out of bed when she wasn't ready to get up.

After a while, without looking up from her shoes, she says, "Shut up, Ezio."

It's confusing for a second, but then Elena realizes visitors must not show up in the animus. She's quiet for a second, then says, "I have to do this, okay? I made my choice, so don't—" Elena has no idea what Ezio is telling her dad, but her heart is suddenly pounding in her chest like it's going to burst right out. "Don't _tell_ me what's going to happen to me if I keep using the animus!" she shouts. "I'm already hallucinating you and Altair, how much worse can it possibly get?"

Ezio probably says something to this but Elena doesn't hear and neither (she imagines) does her dad. She's shaking her head, shaking and shaking it like she can just deny Ezio right out of existence. Which is weird, because… had there really been a time when her dad thought visiting wasn't real? Elena knows he hadn't always had visitors, the way she has, and that seems lonely enough. But to have them and not believe in them? That _sucks_.

"You're not even real," Elena mutters, and finishes pulling on her hoodie. She hurries away, and even though she can't see Ezio, she can feel the little tug behind her she recognizes as a visitor falling out of range.

She reaches a larger room lined with statues, including one of Altair. Elena looks up at it, a deep misery soaking through her. "You're not real either," she mutters.

"Desmond, you ready?"

Elena turns around, and it's her mom, and oh _God_ these are not feelings she should be having for her mother. Her breath catches in her throat and for once that has nothing to do with her dad, that's all her, because it's so weird to remember her dad was once just like any other guy, with… urges and feelings. And it's kind of squicky that Elena is feeling those urges too, right now.

But the weirdest thing of all is that the way her dad feels for her mom isn't… it's not—

Elena knows she's seventeen. She knows all the things people say about teenagers and love, and the way she feels for Matthew isn't really comparable for the way her dad feels for her mom. But there's no real depth to this attraction, it's all physical and Elena had sort of expected more. But then—maybe it had grown into something more? Elena knows her parents aren't together anymore (there's Evie, after all, that would have been weird if Elena's dad had still been in love with her mom). But they must have at least been in love when they made her. Right?

Maybe it's thinking about what that night must have been like that does it. Maybe it's just the way the animus works. Either way, she's suddenly on her back and her mom is on top of her, her mouth against her neck, and Elena is hard and tight in places she shouldn't be, it's wrong, it's _wrong_ , she doesn't want to think about her mom like this.

There's someone else in her dad's head, another face, another name. He keeps trying not to think about her but Elena thinks anything would be better than the places she can feel _her mother_ touching her, kissing her, holding her. She tries to focus on that other name, she reaches for it—finds it.

Christina. Christina Vespucci, that's the woman her dad is trying so hard not to remember. Elena dives after the memory, desperate, and—

She's Ezio, suddenly. Sort of. She can still feel her dad around her, somehow, but she can… feel him feeling Ezio, in the same way she's feeling him. It's like she's gone from being just Elena, to being Desmond-Elena, to being Ezio-Desmond-Elena. All at once, and it's… hard. She has to keep reminding herself which one is real, and which ones are just memories. It's confusing, too, because two people makes sense, sort of but three? How…?

Oh.

She's in an animus, reliving a memory of her dad in an animus, reliving a memory of Ezio's. That must be it. Elena gasps, tries to get her bearings. Ezio is about Elena's age, naked and young and intoxicated by the love he feels for the woman in his bed. Christina. The word resonates in his mind, like a wine glass vibrating at a perfect pitch. He is so young, and so in love…

But Elena's dad is not. He's twenty five, and terrified of how easily Ezio's feelings are overrunning his own. He doesn't want to be in love with this long dead woman, but he can't stop himself. His fear is a discordant note against the symphony of love singing through Ezio's whole being.

And then there is Elena, who is just so, so relieved not to be in that room with her mom anymore…

It's too—

Too much, there's too _much,_ he—

She. _She_ can't stand this much love and fear and relief all at once, she's breaking into pieces and she can't find the pieces that are Elena, she's—

Altair, suddenly, Altair and Desmond (and maybe still a little bit Elena) all at the same time, and she's not with Christina but Maria, on a tall tower somewhere (in Acre, Altair knows), (I remember this from the animus, Desmond thinks), they're lost inside her…

And then Altair-Desmond-Elena is just Desmond-Elena, shifting away from Altair into… not into Maria but something small and bright _inside_ Maria. A baby, Desmond realizes, and Elena feels his surprise like something fresh and strong inside her. Elena is rapidly learning that these feelings are dangerous, that they're like weapons against the fragile remnants of her psyche. She steels the bits of herself she has left, tries to fight off the surprise, but she loses another few pieces of herself in the process.

And Desmond doesn't even realize, he's still thinking about moving from Altair to the baby he and Maria have just made. A _baby_ —

Another scene change, another new place, they're just Desmond-Elena again, and they're small, practically a baby themselves. And they're sobbing in the mud as rain comes down around them, begging _"Please I can't, I'm too little, please dad—"_

And Dad is above them and he's so mad, and they're _so_ scared, because dad is never happy, nothing they do is ever good enough for dad but this time is even worse…

Dad grabs at their arm and pulls them to their feet. They barely come up to his waist, even when they stand up straight, but they can't stand up straight, they're bent under the weight of frustration and fear and failure, hugging themselves tight, too breathless even to cry right.

"William," someone calls to their dad—it's one of the other assassins, a grown up they know but not well, just another face at the farm. "Let the boy go, maybe he's not ready for this—"

"He's my son," dad says, and he's _angry_ , he's so angry—"And he will learn to fight."

He pushes them forward, toward the other kids. All of them are older, all of them are laughing, and this is supposed to be a sparring match but… but they're so much older and bigger, and the first fist hits them hard and fast. They go down again, back into the mud, again and again until there is no Elena, there is no Desmond either, there is just the rain and the mud and pain all over and dad shouting that they're not good enough—

Finally, it's over. Mom comes at last, and picks him up, and holds him close as they walk back toward the house. "Mom," Desmond says. "Mommy, why—" he's trying so hard not to cry. "Why is dad being so mean? I can't spar with the big kids, I'm too little, I _can't_."

"He's just trying to do what's best for you," she says softly. "Come on, baby, let's get you cleaned up…"

She runs a bath for him and stays at his side the whole time, helps him wash the mud away. The water around Desmond goes dark and cloudy but he keeps scrubbing and scrubbing, like it will wipe away the bruises that are just now starting to form, like it will wash off the humiliation and the pain and the fear of not knowing _why_ his dad had thrown him in with the big kids instead of protecting him like he's supposed to.

Then he puts him to bed, promises to lie with him until he falls asleep. But she drops off first, and Desmond stays curled against her for hours and hours, staring at the ceiling because he can't sleep, he doesn't know how he'll ever sleep again—

And suddenly he's not in his room, he's not a child. Of course he's not. Stupid thing to think. He's twenty five, and he's stuck in the crumbling ruins of Monteriggioni. Great. Because it's not bad enough to be bleeding his ancestors, now he's getting stuck in his _own_ memories.

And then he realizes there's something… off about this scene. Because… he's lying next to Lucy, and they're both naked, comfortable and more relaxed than usual after their night together. But he's not… himself. He's not Lucy, he's—what is he?

He tries to focus, and feels it at last. Something small and bright inside Lucy.

_("Shit—what's she doing in there?")_

A baby? _Their_ baby? But—no, that's not possible.

_("Rebecca! Rebecca, did you know she was in there?")_

They can't have made a baby, not in the middle of all this, it's just… it's not fair.

_("Elena, baby please, wake up…")_

And how can he be in their child anyway? He can bleed his ancestors, but he can't possibly bleed his descendants…

_("Elena, it's dad. I need you to open your eyes. Please, please, open your eyes…")_

Someone slaps him across the face, hard, and Desmond's eyes snap open. He's breathing heavily, panicking because everything is wrong. He's in the animus—well, no surprise there, he's _always_ in the animus these days. But it looks old, dusty and unused. And— _fuck,_ no. There's another Desmond, kneeling next to him, face distorted with fear and concern. But the other Desmond is so old, maybe forty, forty five, and he only has one arm, what the fuck, what the _actual fuck_ —

Rebecca's standing next to the other Desmond, she looks like she's the one that's just slapped him. Desmond's face throbs, and his eyes drop away from Rebecca's too-old face. There's a boy on the other side of the bed, dressed like he's just walked out of the Revolutionary War, or something. Desmond doesn't know him, but his heart jumps like he's just seen Lucy, or Christina, or Maria…

No one else is looking at him. Another hallucination? Desmond sets his face in a grim line and turns away from the boy, ignoring him, ignoring the look of hurt that flashes across his face.

"Elena," the other Desmond says. "Elena, what were you doing in there?"

He's talking to him, Desmond realizes dully. But—he'd called him Elena. That's not his name, that's not… it's—what?

Desmond looks down at himself—whimpers. That's not his body, it's a teenaged girl and he brings his shaking hands up to his face, feeling her features, trying to figure out who she is and why he's in her body. Is he bleeding? But… but…

What?

"I told her not to," someone says, and Desmond peeks out through the girl's fingers to see Altair has joined the other Desmond. Because of course, _of course_ his hallucinations have followed him here. Maybe he's hit his head. That… almost makes sense. Maybe he's asleep? He pinches himself hopefully, and isn't at all surprised when he doesn't wake up.

"Elena," the other Desmond says, leaning toward her, reaching out to put his hand gently on one of Desmond's. "Do you… do you know me? It's dad—"

Desmond jerks away, a violent, instinctual reaction that seems to hit the other Desmond like a physical blow. No, _no_ , he can't deal with his dad right now, he can't—"Go away," Desmond says, and his voice is unfamiliar in his own ears, it's high and girlish and only the fear sounds familiar. "Go away, go away, _go away!"_

And then he's screaming and screaming and he can't stop, and people are shouting for Elena around him but he's losing whatever thin grasp he has on reality. And then someone pushes a needle into his neck, and what follows is peaceful, blessed oblivion at last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obviously there is a part two coming, but I thought this seemed long enough as is.


	61. Chapter 61

The new kid calls themselves Desmond, but Owen knows that isn't true.

Everyone that comes to Animus Island brings something unique with them, a sort of digital code that Owen has learned to recognize after many, many years of living in the animus. Every single person has a unique code, sort of like a fingerprint, and Owen _knows_ Desmond's. Because Desmond is a friend, he comes back over and over again, and the person standing in front of him now, wearing Desmond's face and calling themselves Desmond, isn't him.

Which means… what? Normally, Owen knows, people come to the Island after spending too much time in a Helix game, but Desmond's memories aren't accessible from there. So the new kid would have to actually be descended from Desmond, one of his kids or something. Which means—

 _He put his own kid in an animus_.

It has been a long, long time since Owen felt anything like the anger that courses through him now. Desmond knows what it's like to bleed, and for some reason he'd let that happen to his child. It's monstrous, it's… it's _worse_ than what Abstergo did to Owen and Desmond in the first place. Because Desmond should know better than this, he should—

He's here. Owen can feel him arriving on the other side of the Island. "I'll be back soon," he tells the false Desmond, and teleports himself across the Island to where the real Desmond has just arrived. And Owen wants to hit him, Desmond is his friend but Desmond has done the unthinkable, he's condemned someone he's supposed to love and protect to the insanity of the animus and the bleeding effect.

"Owen," Desmond says, and maybe he reads the expression on Owen's face because he looks alarmed. "Are you—"

That's all he gets the chance to say. Owen shouts and thrusts a fist forward, not to hit Desmond but to direct the Island around them. It is a part of him, and as Owen is angry, so is the Island. The grass below them withers and dies, and the trees shed their leaves all at once. Their branches turn thin and dark, they reach for Desmond and wrap themselves around him, tight like a vice, until he can't move so much as an inch.

Owen walks toward him, and his footprints burn the ground where he steps. "What did you do?" he demands, and his voice is thunder and fire, it's all the anger he feels for a father that knows _damn_ well what an animus does, and had subjected his child to it anyway.

"Owen, no!" Desmond shouts, but Owen roars at him.

"Shut up!" he bellows, and doesn't recognize the anger in his own voice. "You put your kid in an animus. I don't want to hear anything but what the fuck you were thinking."

"I didn't," Desmond says. The trees squeeze tighter around him, so that even though they both know this isn't his real body, he struggles for breath. "She did it herself. She—" His body spasms, not with pain but with sobs. Owen frowns and steps still closer, until he can see the tears on Desmond's face. He looks exhausted, like he hasn't slept in days, tortured and miserable, haunted. "I don't _know_ what she was thinking," he says. "But she won't… she's bleeding me, but she's bleeding me from when I was in the animus, so she's bleeding Altair and Ezio too, and she's—" He looks at Owen, desperate and pleading. "Please," he says. "If I'd known what she was doing, I wouldn't have let her, you _know_ I wouldn't have let her. She was only in for about an hour, and we pulled her out as soon as we found her, but—"

Owen lets the trees sag back, away from Desmond. The other man drops to the ground, limp.

"That was three days ago," Desmond says. "And she's still not herself. Clay and I have tried everything we can think of, and when nothing worked we thought we would bring her here. We thought maybe you would help."

"Of course I will," Owen says. "I'm—sorry I assumed you'd done it to her on purpose."

"I don't care," Desmond says. "Think whatever you want of me, just _help_ her."

Owen nods, which seems to reassure Desmond a bit. "But you have to understand," Owen says. "I'm not a miracle worker. I'm pretty good at helping the people here, but there are some people I just can't reach. Some of them have been here years, and I'm not sure if they'll ever be better. And your daughter's in an unusual position, because she's bleeding someone that was bleeding already, it's like… a bleeding onion, or something with just layers and layers of bleeding—" This is obviously not helping Desmond feel any better, so Owen switches tactics. "But I'll do my best," he says. "And if nothing else, she'll be safe here."

"Thank you," Desmond says.

"But I need you to do two things to help," Owen says.

"Sure. Anything."

"I need you to stay away," Owen says.

"But—"

"Listen," Owen says. "She thinks she's you. Seeing you is only going to upset her, at least until we can get her stabilized a little bit."

Desmond nods, miserable. "What's the other thing?"

"Tell me her name," Owen says. "Her real name."

"Elena," Desmond says. "And she's seventeen. She made a stupid mistake, but she doesn't deserve to suffer like this for it."

Owen agrees absolutely. "I'll do everything I can," he promises.

It still takes a few minutes after that to convince Desmond to leave, but eventually Owen manages it. After Desmond goes, Owen is alone, or as alone as he ever is on this Island full of sad, lonely people.

And he has a job to do.

-//-

Desmond waits a while, but the man from before doesn't come back right away. It makes Desmond nervous, being alone in this unknown place—he starts walking, trying to get the lay of the land. It's not a bad place, really. Bright. Warm. Just a hint of wind that stirs his hair and rustles the leaves on the trees. There are birds somewhere, singing overhead. Desmond almost looks up but he doesn't quite have the energy. It's all he can do to just keep walking and walking until he can't walk anymore—he's run out of ground.

There's an ocean in front of him, clear and bright and beautiful, and Desmond just watches it for a long time. It's more peaceful than anywhere he's been in a long time. Maybe ever.

"Do you like it?"

Desmond jumps and turns around, and there's the man from before. Owen, he'd called himself. "Where'd you come from?" he asks. "I didn't hear you."

"Sorry to startle you," Owen says. "You looked lost in thought."

"Yea," Desmond says. "I kind of was." He turns back to the water in front of them. "Where is this place? It doesn't feel quite… right."

"It's called Animus Island," Owen says.

"Animus—"  _No_ , no more animus, please...

"Hey, hey." Owen shakes his head. "Calm down. Yes, you're in an animus. But it's not like you're thinking. You're here to get better, not to relive more of your ancestors."

"Better?"

Owen nods. "People come here when they start bleeding and just can't stop. I created this place specifically to help them."

"And so you just—what, you hang out in an animus all day?" Desmond asks. "Why?"

"I don't have much choice," Owen says. "You know about Abstergo's animus project?"

Desmond nods, a shuddery jerk of the head. He doesn't want to think about that right now, doesn't want to think about being Subject Seventeen…

"I was Subject One," Owen says. "Things were bad, then—no one even knew what the bleeding effect was, and overexposure to the animus killed me. I was actually in an animus when I died, and so part of me just… stayed here."

"That sounds awful," Desmond says. "Is that… is that going to happen to me?"

"No," Owen says, with so much confidence that Desmond can't bring himself to believe him. "I mean, you've only spent about an hour in your ancestor's memories."

"No," Desmond says. "No, it's been weeks."

They look at each other. Desmond's confused and Owen seems to be waiting for him to get it. Whatever _it_ is. "Do you know the year?" Owen asks at last.

"2012," Desmond says at once.

"It's 2030."

"What? How is that even possible?" Desmond asks. "I would _know_ if eighteen years had gone by." Wouldn’t he?

"Let me put it like this." Owen bites his lip for a moment, considering, then goes on. "When you bleed, and think you're Altair, what year would you tell me it was?"

"1191. But—"

"And you would be absolutely convinced it was 1191, wouldn't you?"

"I… suppose."

"And if I were to ask you the year when you were bleeding Ezio?"

Desmond shrugs. He's seen a lot more of Ezio's life than Altair's. "14-something, I guess."

"So to continue the hypothetical," Owen says. "If you were living in 2030, and used an animus to relive Desmond's memories of 2012, and I asked you what year it was…"

Desmond tries several times to process this and just absolutely fails. He can sort of understand what Owen is trying to say. That he's _not_ Desmond, he's one of his descendants. But that would—it… No. No, he _knows_ he's Desmond.

But he can't actually… remember being Desmond. Not much, anyway. He pokes at his own memories and finds nothing but holes. There are _years_ that he can't remember, things that he should know but can't quite reach. It's terrifying, like looking around and finding the very ordinary room you thought you were in was never anything but a movie set. His mind scrabbles for an excuse, something that will let him be Desmond and not remember anything. The animus, maybe? Could it take his memories so easily?

But his mind keeps offering up the memory of being pulled out of the animus by that other Desmond, finding himself suddenly in a girl's body. Had _that_ been real? He doesn't remember being her either, but…

"Elena," Desmond says, quietly. The name feels… easy on his tongue, like he's said it before. "That's what everyone kept calling me."

Owen nods. Desmond sits down, too numb to keep standing a moment longer, and Owen sits next to him. "I know it's a lot to process," he says.

"I can't make myself believe it," Desmond says. "It just seems so impossible. Shouldn't I remember something about being… about being her? I mean I can't remember a lot about being Desmond, but I do have some memories."

"You're still bleeding," Owen says. "In time, that will get easier."

"And what happens until then?" Desmond asks. "What am I supposed to do, just hang out here?"

"Yes," Owen says. "You won't be alone. There are others here, people that are bleeding as badly or even worse than you are."

"And you'll be here?" Desmond asks. He doesn't know why but there's something reassuring about Owen. Maybe just because he's been here before and he understands how hard it is. Maybe because he's not judging Desmond for being so fucked up.

"Nowhere else to go," Owen says. They sit for a while, until Owen finally clambers to his feet with a groan and offers Desmond a hand up. "Come on," he says. "I'll introduce you to the others and let you start getting settled in."

Desmond nods, and accepts the offer of help. For now at least, it doesn't seem like there's any other choice.

-//-

Time on the Island passes strangely, in fits and bursts, long periods of slow nothingness followed by brief excitement. Desmond fits in well with the others, and takes comfort in knowing he is not alone in not knowing who he is. Making friends is an interesting process, when anyone involved could wake up one morning as someone else, but they manage somehow. Shared trauma pulls them together, and Desmond spends long days with the others exploring the Island, finding new and exciting places at every turn.

Sometimes they'll talk on these expeditions, trading fragile, half-remembered stories of home. Desmond goes for ages without a single story of his own to offer, but he listens to the way the others talk of their lives. Half hopeful, half disbelieving that these memories are really _theirs_.

"Why don't I remember anything?" Desmond asks Owen after a while. "There are people that have been here less time than me, and they know their own names."

"They aren't bleeding people that were bleeding already," Owen says, patiently. He's explained this before, many times. "And anyway, Elena. You do know your name."

"Only because other people told it to me," Desmond says. "I don't remember being whoever she is."

"You will," Owen says.

But Desmond doesn't believe him, not until one day he wakes up and he _does_ remember. Just a bit. He's asleep by the shore—for some reason, he's always found that the most calming part of the island—and when he wakes up, he's alone and there's something wrong. No—not wrong. Right. There's a little bit of Elena in him, just a whisper of her, a fragile, flickering flame of someone Desmond had honestly thought long dead.

He sits up, heart beating fast, and closes his eyes to concentrate better. It would be so, so easy to let Elena fade away again and he can't let that happen. He is so tired of being someone he knows he's not. Desmond imagines Elena as a tongue of flame, imagines cupping his hands around her to protect her from the wind and the world, and wonders if this is how his dad had felt. Maybe, when he was very small and still needed it, his dad had protected him like this.

But—no, William had never protected him. Desmond doesn't have as many memories as he should, but he has more than enough to know William wouldn't do that for him.

Except that doesn't feel right, and the little flame of Elena is shouting that William isn't her father, it's Desmond—

Oh. Oh!

It's like something clicking into place in her head, and when she knows that Desmond is her _father_ , she knows she isn't him. She knows her own name. She knows she is Elena, and maybe she doesn't know anything more than that but it's so much more than she knew yesterday.

Her body doesn't feel right anymore. Course it doesn't, _she's not Desmond_. She's not! She doesn't want to look like him anymore, and as long as she's on Animus Island, she doesn't have to. Owen has told her before that everything she is on his Island is just what her mind believes. And what her mind believes has changed.

Elena can't quite remember what she looks like. She remembers feeling her face when she woke up and saw the other… when she saw her dad. It's hard to concentrate on that, but she tries. And in the end, maybe it doesn't really work the way it's supposed to. Elena feels like she probably ends up looking more like a younger, female version of her father than actually looking like _herself_. But maybe that's not so bad. She's not Desmond, she knows that now, but he's her dad and thinking about him makes her feel safe. It's nice to have a little reminder of him in her own face. At least for now.

Which is kind of funny, actually. She's not really Desmond and never had been, she hadn't even had his memories. But she'd had his feelings, and Desmond had never once seen himself the way Elena sees him. Yesterday, when she was Desmond, she would have laughed at the idea that someone could think of him and feel safe. Now that she's Elena again, it's the most natural thing in the world. He's her dad.

When Owen sees her he beams and hugs her tight.

"I didn't do all that much," Elena says, even as she beams and blushes and feels _awesome_ for knowing her own name. Well, she'd known it already. But now she _knows_ it, the name belongs to her.

"You started," Owen says. "That's the hard part."

"I want to go home," Elena says. "Is that stupid? I can't remember home, but I want to go there."

Owen's grinning at her, proud like her victory is his own. "It's not stupid at all," he says. "Everyone wants to go home."

"Do you?" Elena asks, and for a second a flicker of uncertainty flashes across Owen's face. The air around them turns cold. Just for a second, just long enough for Elena to feel bad for asking. Owen _can't_ go home. He's dead. "Sorry," she mutters.

Owen nods and changes the subject, focuses back on Elena. "Tell me about home," he says.

"I don't remember."

"Just try," Owen says. "I bet you remember more than you think you do. Don't think about what it looks like or where it is. Just think about how it makes you feel."

"Um…" Elena rocks back on her heels, thinking about it. She shoves her hands into the pockets of her hoodie, or—well, her dad's hoodie, the one he'd been wearing in her memories of him in the animus. She doesn't remember what Elena likes to wear. Thinking about that should make her sad, but instead it—there's a memory there, just a snatch, not even a scene just a feeling and an image or two.

"Elena?" Owen prompts.

"I remember… I was about six," Elena says. "Or seven? Little. I was watching TV with my dad on the couch, and it was getting late. I don't remember what we were watching but I remember it was cold. It must have been winter, and the heating… it wasn't working right." Maybe Owen's right, maybe she does remember more than she thinks, because talking about it seems to make the remembering easier. She can see the memory unfolding in front of her, detail after detail. "Shay…" She doesn't remember Shay, he's just a name without a face. "He swore he could fix it but he hadn't managed yet. And I kept almost falling asleep and then waking up because I was cold, so dad took off his hoodie and put it over me like a blanket."

"And how did you feel?" Owen asks.

"Safe," Elena says. They're both quiet for a minute. Elena wants to just think about the memory, play it over and over again in her head, see if she remembers anything else. But Owen looks worried. "Owen?"

"Yea?"

"What do you remember about home?"

Owen looks away, and the air gets cold again. "Nothing."

It could not be more obvious that Owen doesn't want to talk about this. Elena shouldn't be pressing. But he's _helping_ her, and she wants to help him, too. "I bet—" she swallows back the thought that this is a bad idea. "I bet you remember more than you think you do."

Owen shakes his head. "I'm not like you, Elena," he says. "I died in the animus, okay? I _died_. There's not all that much of me left."

"That's dumb," Elena says. "You're not some half-person just because you don't have a body."

"Elena—"

"Try?" She sets her face into something stubborn. "I'll try to remember me if you try to remember you."

Owen snorts a little laugh. "God," he says. "I forgot, with you looking like that."

"Forgot what?"

"You're seventeen," Owen says. "Teenagers. Too stubborn for your own good, all of you."

"Were you?" Elena presses. She's trying not to think about being seventeen, because that's a piece of new information that's best processed later. "Stubborn, I mean. When you were a teenager?"

Owen shakes his head but he's smiling, just a little. "Fine," he says. "Let me think a minute."

It's more than a minute but Elena waits without saying a word. Finally, Owen says—

"I remember Mardi Gras."

"In New Orleans?"

"Where else? Only place worth being, that time of year. And I remember, I was… thirteen? No, older. Fifteen or sixteen. I wanted to be out with my friends, we were planning… I don't know. It seemed important at the time but I'm sure it was stupid. My mom told me to stay in, because it was going to be busy and I needed to help in the shop."

"What kind of shop?"

"Coffee," Owen says. "I remember the smell, more than anything else. The noise of people talking, the drunks coming in to sober up, everyone laughing."

"And how did you feel?" Elena asks.

Owen smiles at her, more genuinely, although Elena can still see the pain behind it. "Safe."

They sit together a while after that, both lost in thoughts of home that are as different from each other as they are from the Island around them. "Your turn," he says. "Give me another memory."

So Elena tells him about her first day of school, and meeting her mom for the first time. And Owen tells her about finishing college, and the feeling like he could do anything he wanted, that first time he held his degree in his hand. And back and forth, back and forth. Elena's memories come more easily than Owen's, and after a while he runs out, and lets Elena keep going on her own until she's too tired to keep talking.

"Get some sleep," Owen says. "We'll talk more in the morning."

"I'm not tired," Elena protests. But maybe she is, because she when she curls up on the ground wrapped in her dad's hoodie, she falls asleep at once. And she sleeps well.

-//-

It isn't all easy. There are bad days, bad for Elena and bad for Owen. But mostly they're both getting better. The others on the Island see Owen improving, and they start trying harder too. Gradually, little by little, they claw their way back into the light.

Until one day Elena wakes up, and she is herself. She knows who she is, and where she comes from. She remembers the stupid decision that brought her into the animus in the first place. She knows it's time to wake up.

But no. First there are things she needs to take care of, goodbyes that need to be said. The Island is emptier than it had been when Elena arrived. There are always new arrivals, of course, but a lot of people have woken up and moved on. Just like Elena is about to. As soon as she says her goodbye to Owen.

"You're leaving," he says when he sees her face. _Her_ face. She knows it at last, and she looks like herself.

"Yea," she says. "I want to go home."

"I'm glad you can," Owen says, and they both hear the unspoken _I wish I could_.

"Owen…" Elena takes a deep breath. "It's not fair. You saved my life. You saved so many peoples' lives. You should have one of your own, it's not _fair_."

"Life isn't fair," Owen says, and Elena scowls.

"Everyone always says that," she says. "Doesn't make it true. Clay used to live in a drone, you could—"

"Your dad offered me the same thing, once," Owen says. "But… no. My body here isn't real, but at least it's a body. My life here isn't… real, but at least I'm doing some good."

So Elena hugs him goodbye. It doesn't feel like enough, but when she whispers her _thank you_ he seems to stand a little straighter. "How do I leave?" she asks.

"I send you home," Owen says. "Like this."

She opens her eyes, and she's back where she's supposed to be. She's home, strapped into an animus but _home_. Elena stirs weakly, stretching muscles that haven't been moved in way too long. There's no one else in the room.

Elena unhooks herself from the animus and stands up. Her legs shake under her but she's not thinking about them. She's thinking about finding her dad, that's all she can think about, and then there he is. He's in the kitchen and he looks so—sad. Did she do that? Is he worried about her?

"Dad!" Elena calls. " _Dad.”_

He looks up at her and then he's on his feet, he's running, he's—

Elena has always loved her dad's hugs. There's no one else in the world that hugs like her dad does, no one else that makes her feel so safe or so at home. "I'm sorry," Elena says. "I shouldn't have messed with the animus, Altair told me not to but I didn't know what it could do, I…"

"Shh," he says, and he holds her close. And that's all he says. It's all he needs to say. His _I forgive you_ and _I love you_ and _I'm so glad you're home_ are all there in his hug, more powerful than anything he could have said.

And then everyone else wants to welcome her home, of course. Grandpa looks torn between telling her off for going into the animus and hugging the life out of her, but in the end he settles on the latter. With… maybe a little bit of the former. Less than Elena knows she deserves. And she gets her first visitor in... ages. Matthew comes to her, and the way he holds her she thinks he's never going to let her go.

The day goes by quickly, and all too soon it's night. It's been years since Elena's shared a room with her dad, she's too old for that now. But there are still nights when they fall asleep on the couch together, watching movies, and Elena is more than happy to let that happen tonight. So is her dad, apparently, because he doesn't tell her it's time for bed or anything.

There is something Elena wants to say, though. It just takes her a while to figure out the right words.

"What's bothering you?" her dad asks at last. "You're okay, aren't you?"

"Fine." She's not bleeding, and she knows that's what's worrying him. Or—she's not bleeding anymore but she had been, and that's the problem. She'd been in his head, and she knows things about him that daughters are not supposed to know about their fathers. That he's not perfect. "Dad, when I was you, in the animus, I was… scared. And lonely. And so, so sad, all the time. And I felt that way because you did so I guess I just want to know—you don't feel like that anymore, do you?"

"No," her dad says. "I have a family now, don't I?"

She nods, _yes_ , but she's thinking about her grandpa, her other grandpa, her dad's biological father. "When you were a kid," she says softly. "Your dad—"

"Shit." He tilts his head back, studying the ceiling. "Did you see him, too?"

"Just a bit," she says. "Enough."

"I never wanted you to know where I came from," her dad says. "I didn't want you to know the kind of person I was before you were in my life."

"I don't love you any less," Elena says. "I never could. I just wanted to make sure you don't feel like that anymore. You're happy now, right?"

He kisses her on the top of her head, like she's still a kid, and Elena doesn't mind tonight. "I'm happy now you're home," he says.

"Me too," Elena says. And she is. She's home and she's safe and her dad's here. That's what matters. That's all that matters.


	62. Chapter 62

"You know what your problem is?" Ezio asks Connor one morning.

Connor looks up at him, regrets the decision at once, and returns to the computer screen in front of him. "My problem is that you are not wearing pants," he says.

"You're welcome," Ezio says, turning slightly. Connor doesn't even have to look at him to know that Ezio has positioned himself to give Connor a better look of his backside. This is exactly why no one (apart from possibly Edward, who is somewhere in the middle of the ocean on a yacht causing as yet unknown amounts of trouble) wants to go on missions with Ezio. Connor happens to be the one that had drawn the short straw this time.

"But no," Ezio continues. "Your problem is that you don't have a girlfriend."

"You seem to be bearing the burden for both of us," Connor says. "You've taken a different woman into your bed every night we've been here."

Ezio shrugs. "It's not getting in the way of the mission."

Connor opens his mouth. He's prepared a carefully worded lecture on exactly this subject, and fully intends to recite it for Ezio now. Something about how this is not the 1500s, and the Brotherhood is no longer running itself out of a brothel. Ezio, of course, does not give him a chance to speak.

"Look," Ezio says, sitting down next to Connor and grabbing his computer away.

" _Ezio—_ "

"You haven't been with a woman since Emily left, have you?" Ezio says.

"I have been… in the same room as a woman."

"But it's not because you don't want to, right?" Ezio goes on, completely ignoring Connor. "You're just you. So I thought, well maybe I can help you find a woman."

"No, Ezio."

" _Yes_ , Ezio," Ezio says. "Look, it's called a dating website."

Connor stares at the screen. Then at Ezio. Then back at the screen. "I have heard of such things," he says. "What makes you think it will do me any good at all?"

"It's a website," Ezio says, slowly, as if to a particularly thick child. "That helps men and women find each other. So they can date. And you need to find a woman."

"Ezio—"

"So you can date."

Connor sighs. "I do not want to find a woman to date," he says.

"Well, man's fine too," Ezio says. "There's websites for that, although I never thought you were interested in men. Because if you are, I'm always available."

"You have made that abundantly clear," Connor says. "And no, I'm not interested in men, either. I'm not interested in dating or a relationship, or anything else these dating websites might claim to be able to give."

"Connor." Ezio closes the laptop and leans over it, studying Connor. "How long were you with Emily?"

"Six years," Connor says. "Why—"

"And isn't there _anything_ you miss about those six years?"

"I…" He doesn't want to answer, but suddenly he's thinking of waking up and not being alone. Lying next to Emily on cold winter nights in a room lit only by candles. She would curl up in his arms, and Connor would run his hands over the swelling bulge of her stomach where their child grew. And they would talk of the future, of what their child might come to be. "I miss Matthew," he admits.

Ezio leans back a little, clearly confused. "I know you miss your son," he says. "But don't you… she was your wife. You loved her, didn't you? Don't you want something like that in your life again?"

Connor does not look away from Ezio's face, because then Ezio will know how deep the question cuts. How is he supposed to know if he loved her? He'd thought he did, once. But his has not been a life rich in love. A mother that died young. A father that he himself killed. Friends, yes, visitors, yes. But Connor does not think he has ever fallen in love the way Ezio seems to on an annual basis.

"I know this will seem sad to you," Connor says at last. "But… no. I do not want someone like Emily in my life again. I enjoyed her company. I am eternally grateful for the son we made together. I still regret that I never met our daughter. But…" He trails off, trying to capture the hazy, tenuous things he'd felt for Emily in a way that will make sense to Ezio. Ezio, who loves more easily than he puts on his pants.

"I did not know who I was with Emily. Marriage—love—it is about taking two people and making them one. There were times when I thought I wanted that. To be one with Emily, to know her as I knew myself, to put my care for her above everything else, above even my own wellbeing. But then there were times when all I wanted was to be just _myself_ , alone. Days when Emily had done nothing wrong but somehow she was still too close, too much. I needed to be me and only me and I was…" Now he _does_ look away, unable to meet Ezio's eyes. "I was afraid that Emily would somehow cause me to lose… myself. I could no longer be me, I could no longer have the private parts of my life or the things that were never meant to leave my head. I felt that I owed everything I was to her, and it frightened me."

"Connor—"

"I do not know if I ever truly loved Emily," Connor says. "But if I did, I am certain I did not enjoy it."

Ezio nods and stands. He doesn't even say a word, and while a moment ago this would have been exactly what Connor wanted out of this conversation, now there is something about it that just feels wrong. Like going down a flight of stairs and finding there is one more step than you were expecting. He feels that what he's just said deserves a reaction, at least. "Ezio," he calls. "Where are you going?"

Ezio pauses, maybe considering his words. "To put on pants," he says at last. "And then I will come back, and we will speak of the mission."

"Not dating websites," Connor says.

"No," Ezio says. "No, I… don't think they would interest you, after all."

He turns to leave, and Connor whispers a "Thank you," toward Ezio's retreating back. It is possible that he is lonely in this time, yes. That he craves the kind of companionship Shay and Aveline have found together, for example. But it is rather like the feeling a man might have, looking at a bird in flight. He can wish all he wants to sprout wings and join it in the air—he will still never leave the ground.

His phone buzzes in his pocket, interrupting Connor's darkening thoughts. He pulls it out, and sees that a new message has arrived from his father. Extremely stiff, in the way all his father's messages are stiff, but still somehow fond.

> _Good morning, son. If it is morning in whatever part of the world your assassin business has taken you. I hope you are well. Elena insisted I send you this picture of her cat._

Under this is a blurry picture of Lion. Another message pops up.

> _I have not heard from you in a few days. Please respond so I can know you are still alive and have all your limbs._

Perhaps, Connor thinks (and he is smiling), there are other types of love, and perhaps he is better equipped to experience these.

> _Still alive. All body parts accounted for. Doing well. Have even convinced Ezio to wear pants to breakfast._
> 
> _A true miracle. Come home soon._
> 
> _We miss you here._


	63. Chapter 63

Marcello is not an assassin, but there are times when he is very good at staying unseen.  
  
When he drops in on visitors making love to one another, mostly. That's when Marcello is best at slipping into the shadows and disappearing. He doesn't want to interrupt, it doesn't seem like any of his business if Jeanne and Jacob want to lie together, or if Matthew and Elena do the same. Or if Darim…  
  
If—  
  
Marcello doesn't recognize the hot feeling in his chest as jealousy. Not at first, anyway, not until he's spent half a dozen or more visits hidden and watching Darim and Rory make passionate love to one another. Because yes, actually, he does watch. He knows it's wrong, but no one's caught him yet and Marcello is maybe not so great at avoiding things he's not supposed to do. And after months of watching Darim and Rory together, Marcello realizes that he's jealous.  
  
Jealous. What does he have to be jealous of? Darim isn't Marcello's boyfriend, he's Rory's. Marcello doesn't have any claim on Darim, and Rory is making Darim (deliriously, ecstatically) happy. There's no reason Marcello should be jealous. Well, except that he can't stop thinking about Darim's body against his, muscular and perfect. He can't stop thinking about Darim smiling at him the way he smiles at Rory.  
  
But no matter how often he tries to remind himself of this, he'll inevitably drop in on Darim and Rory again. And he'll see Darim's normally stern face just transformed by Rory's presence, and Marcello can almost feel himself turning into some bitter, jealous monster. He wishes terrible things on Rory, and then regrets it because Rory is his friend. Sometimes he even wonders if this is some kind of punishment for wanting Darim in the first place.  
  
One night, when Darim and Rory have exhausted themselves and fallen asleep in each other's arms, Marcello dares to creep out of the corner where he's been hiding himself. He doesn't know what he's thinking of doing, possibly just hovering like a complete creep over Darim and Rory as they sleep. But before Marcello can even reach the bed, Rory has vanished and Darim startled awake.  
  
He looks briefly sad to discover Rory is gone, but then turns and sees Marcello there. Then he just looks embarrassed, scrambling for something to cover himself with while Marcello makes a very belated pretense of not looking. "Marcello," Darim says. "This isn't—I mean, I'm not just lying here alone and naked, I mean—"  
  
"Rory was here," Marcello says. "I know."  
  
"Yea." Darim grins, and Marcello frowns as another spike of jealousy drives itself through his chest. "I'd offer you the bed, but…"  
  
But it still stinks of sex, and Marcello shrugs, uncomfortable. "I'll sit on the floor," he says, and does so. For a moment all is silent and still. The stone floor here is cold, and Marcello draws his knees up to his chest, hugging them close. Darim turns over in bed to face him, one hand squeezing Marcello's shoulder in an unusually familiar gesture. But he is always like this after sex, Marcello has seen it over and over again. Loose and relaxed, yearning to touch. Marcello reaches a hand up to Darim's, then quickly lowers it again when he can't make it stop shaking. Bad enough that he's jealous that two of his visitors have found happiness with one another—it would be worse if Darim knew.  
  
"Are you alright?" Darim asks.  
  
"Fine," Marcello says.  
  
"You're quiet."  
  
"Well, I just dropped in on you and Rory," Marcello says. He's grateful that his position on the floor forces him to look away from Darim. He doesn't think he would be able to look Darim in the eye just now. "It's not the most fun thing to watch."  
  
"Sorry," Darim says. "I didn't know you were there."  
  
"You were distracted."  
  
Darim makes a little humming noise of agreement. They lapse into silence again, and then Darim speaks. "Hey," he says. "I have a question."  
  
"What?"  
  
"What lives at the bottom of the ocean?"  
  
It's absolutely the last thing Marcello had been expecting. "What?"  
  
"Are there fish?" Darim asks. "Some kind of monster? I just want to know, and you're probably the smartest person I've ever met." The jealousy in Marcello's chest eases a little. "So I thought if anyone would know, it would be you."  
  
Marcello doesn't know, not for sure. But he's read books about sea life and oceans and he can give Darim a guess. Darim listens closely, and it's nice to have someone that actually wants to hear Marcello talk about something he's read, for once. So he talks a little bit longer, until finally he runs out of things to say.  
  
"What about space?" Darim asks. "What lives out there?"  
  
And Marcello has absolutely no idea what lives in outer space, because it's not like anyone could ever actually get there so how would they find out for sure? But he can talk about the planets and the epicycles they follow in their journey around the Earth. Darim has other questions after that, question after question after question.  
  
"Why do you want to know all this stuff right now?" Marcello asks at one point, what feels like hours later.  
  
"I don't know," Darim says. "I just… I'm lonely, I guess. I want Rory to come back but I know he can't control his visiting. So I guess I want a distraction, instead."  
  
"Oh," Marcello says. He doesn't want to be just a distraction.  
  
"What do you know about…" Darim struggles for words. "About that feeling you get when you're with someone you love? When you're… you're in them and your whole brain just…" he trails off with a happy sigh, and Marcello stares stony faced at the wall, wishing himself away, or at least into Darim's bed.  
  
"Nothing," he says shortly. "I don't know anything about that." And maybe Darim takes the hint because he changes the subject, asks a different question.  
  
Marcello talks until he's tired. He talks until he hears Darim drop off to sleep behind him, still holding Marcello's shoulder in a lax grip as his breathing slows and evens out. And then Marcello closes his eyes and sleeps too, and wonders why he had to fall in love with his favorite visitor of all people. Why Darim? Darim, who is so, so in love with Rory…  
  
It's just not fair.


	64. Chapter 64

Adewale has never particularly enjoyed visits from Jacob Frye. Well—he has very rarely found cause to enjoy any of his hallucinations. But Jacob is absolutely the worst, and as a general rule Adewale prefers to end his visits as soon as possible by throwing him over the side of a ship. Something about that—perhaps the fact that it would have killed a normal person—seems to break the hallucination and send Jacob away.

But today Adewale is on land, and so there is no easy escape from Jacob's incessant attempts at conversation.

"You know I was knighted last week," Jacob says, in the least casual tone of voice Adewale has ever heard.

"Hmm," Adewale says. It's a carefully pitched note of indifference, but Jacob apparently misinterprets it as relief.

"No, really," Jacob insists. "Evie was too!" Then, with slightly more reluctance. "And Greenie."

"Of course," Adewale says. "Last week. In the future. And you wonder why I doubt your existence."

Jacob mutters something rude but creative that Adewale had not realized his subconscious was capable of inventing. "You're no fun," he says.

"And you're not real."

He keeps walking for another half dozen feet and then stops abruptly, unable to take another step. An invisible wall seems to have appeared just in front of him, preventing him from moving. Adewale knows that his hallucinations are tethered to him, and his mind will not allow him to stray too far. So this is _Jacob's_ fault, of course it is—

He turns and for half a second he is thrown by the expression on Jacob's face. It is not the petulant childishness he has come to expect from Jacob, but something akin to peace. His posture has relaxed, opened up a little. There's a soft smile curling across his face, and his eyes are bright. "Arno," Jacob says.

Adewale turns in the direction Jacob is looking, and he is unsurprised to see that yes, Arno is standing there, blinking and squinting into the bright Caribbean sun as he tries to adjust from wherever he'd been before this. Probably underground. Sometimes it feels like the only parts of Paris Adewale has seen have been tunnels and crypts. Arno stumbles a bit on an uneven bit of ground, and Jacob moves at once to catch him.

"Ade!" Jacob says. "Hey, Ade, have you met Arno? Love this guy."

Arno's face goes redder than Adewale thinks it has any reason to, and he pushes himself gently away from Jacob. "Yea," he says. "We've met, Jacob. We're all visitors, that's how things work."

"I know," Jacob says. "I just—"

"Will you _please_ stop telling people you love me?" Arno bursts out. It's so forceful and so sudden that Jacob takes a step back, and Adewale feels his eyebrows shoot up. Okay. Now his hallucinations are having some kind of strange, unresolved sexual tension. This is… clearly a step in the wrong direction, sanity-wise.

"I do, though." Jacob says, after a pause. His voice is light, but Adewale has known Edward Kenway far too long to be fooled by the sound of someone pretending not to be upset.

"I don't," Arno says. "I can't."

"Arno."

" _Elise_."

He blurts out the name, putting it between himself and Jacob like a shield. And Adewale has seen Jacob ignore all kind of hints that are supposed to mean _go away_ or _stop talking_. But Arno says _Elise_ and Jacob doesn't say anything at all. Not for a while, anyway, and when he does at last say something, it's after putting some obvious thought into his words. "I don't need you to love me," he says. "But why do you care if I love you?"

"I'm just worried that I'm giving you the wrong impression if I let you keep saying stuff like that," Arno says. "I kissed you back after—Roth."

Jacob visibly shudders, and pretends he hadn't. Arno pretends he hasn't seen. Adewale pretends not to care about this strange suggestion that his hallucinations have lives and feelings away from what he can see.

"I didn't want you to think we might still have a chance in the future," Arno says.

"Nope," Jacob mutters. "Pretty much definitely not thinking that. I know you still care about Elise." He crosses his arms and his gaze drops to the ground between himself and Arno. "Doesn't make me… you know. Care any less."

"Jacob—"

"I still love you," Jacob says, stubborn and surly. "Don't care who knows it. I'll keep saying it. Unless… unless it really bothers you."

Arno hesitates and glances away. "No," he mumbles. "Don't stop. If it's that important to you, it's not my place to ask you to let it go. So long as we can still be friends."

Adewale gets half a glance at the relief on Jacob's face before he fades and vanishes. Arno remains, and he turns to look hopelessly at Adewale. "He's been telling me he loves me for months now," he says. "Months for me, anyway. I don't know how long it's been for him. But every time he tells me he loves me, I can't get past the feeling that I'm supposed to say it back. And I don't know if it's just instinct, like when someone asks how you're doing and you say fine even though you feel like shit, or if I actually want… this. Him. Evie says I need to think about it, figure out where I stand and give Jacob a straight answer. She says if I figure it out, if I _do_ love him, we can… I don't know. Sort something out. But I don't know. I'm stuck. I don't know what I want. Do you have any advice, maybe…?"

"You're not real," Adewale reminds him. "Everything you're worrying about doesn't matter because it's _not real_. Just like you."

Arno's expression is all hurt, a kicked dog. "Right," he says. "My mistake. I don't know why I thought I might get a sympathetic ear out of you."

"Of course not," Adewale says. "You're not real."

And then Arno is gone too, and Adewale is left alone (alone apart from the dozen or so people nearby looking at him like he's insane). He scoffs and shakes his head, then mutters—

"But if you were real, I would definitely tell you to just sleep with Jacob and figure it out one way or the other already."

If either of them were real. Which they're not. Of course.


	65. Chapter 65

Rory knows at once that he is visiting Darim. Masyaf looks like absolutely nowhere else in the world, nowhere that Rory has ever been anyway, and he loves coming here. Only here, in the assassin stronghold, with Darim, does Rory feel completely and entirely safe from templars. It's true that Darim's mother had once been a templar, but she's not one anymore and so that's probably okay.

Rory relaxes and starts looking around for his boyfriend. It's quiet here, and Darim hadn't come out at once to find him, which could mean anything really. Judging from the thick darkness of the room, Darim is probably asleep.

Rory knows Darim's bedroom well, and he crosses from the door to Darim's bed easily. There he pauses, because it's best to be careful with visits. He doesn't want to walk in on an earlier Darim, for example, a child or one that is still with Elena. Or—

In the dim light of the moon that filters in through the window, Rory can just barely make out two men in the bed. They're older than him by maybe five years, but Rory knows both of them at once. Darim and Marcello. Curled around each other, Marcello tucked tightly against Darim's chest, Darim's head resting on Marcello's shoulder. They look peaceful, fast asleep and breathing easily.

Darim—perhaps because he is the one that is actually here—is wearing nightclothes. Rory tries to distract himself with the thought of Altair walking in on his son naked, and utterly fails. Because Marcello is completely naked, and not by accident either. His clothes are balled up next to the bed, so he'd arrived on this visit fully clothed. And then he'd… they'd…

Rory does not so much sit down at the foot of Darim's bed as his legs sort of fold under him. He puts his hands over his mouth to keep from making a sound and tries to breathe normally. What is he supposed to feel about this? This Darim is older than his Darim—are they still together in this time? Is Darim cheating on him with Marcello, or… are he and Darim no longer together? Maybe Darim had moved on from Rory the same way he'd moved on from Elena and  _ oh… _

The idea of that hurts almost more than the idea of Darim cheating on him. Who had ended it? Had he broken up with Darim (the thought is like a sharp pain in his chest)? No. No, no,  _ no _ . So Darim had broken up with Rory?

Behind his hands, Rory makes a strangled sobbing noise. No, this isn't fair, it isn't at all fair—

"Marcello…"

Rory freezes as Darim speaks up from the bed. He's out of sight just now, but Rory knows Darim is an assassin, a great assassin, and he'll spot Rory if he moves an inch or makes a sound. He focuses all his efforts on staying still and silent because he doesn't think he could stand to be discovered just now…

"Marcello," Darim says again.

"Mm..?"

"Did you hear something?"

"Heard you," Marcello mumbles.

Darim laughs, low and fond in the mostly darkness of the bedroom. Rory has never hated anyone as much as he hates Marcello right at this moment, for making Darim laugh like that. "I meant  _ besides  _ me," he says.

"No," Marcello says. "Didn't hear anything." There's a brief sound of movement from the bed, a movement of blankets and bodies. "But now that we're up…" There's a thump, and then Darim laughs again and Marcello does too, and then the noises get much more intimate.

No.

If Rory had not already been trying to stay as still as possible, he would have gone frozen. Sitting here, listening to his boyfriend have sex with another man, hearing Marcello gasping out Darim's name, moaning it, calling for Darim with a kind of base  _ need _ … it's the hardest thing Rory has ever had to do. Tears well up in his eyes and he squeezes them shut. He can't afford to start crying now, he knows he's not a quiet crier. His tears are always big and messy and ugly, and he can't stand the thought of Darim and Marcello finding him like that…

Eventually, after what feels like  _ years _ , the noises from the bed stop. The air is full of the stink of sex and sweat, and Rory keeps trying not to breathe. Above him, Darim lets out a long, slow sigh. "I love you," he says, and Rory breaks a little.

"I love you too," Marcello says. His voice sounds slightly muffled, like his mouth is pressed against Darim. "I love you and your amazing ass."

"I don't know where I'd be without you," Darim says. He sounds like he’s smiling, he sounds like he’s laughing, he sounds like he’s over the  _ moon  _ with happiness.

"You’d be miserable," Marcello says. "Lonely."

"Probably," Darim says.

"You wouldn’t be having sex."

" _ Definitely _ ." They both laugh, and then it sounds like they start kissing. Rory's visit, mercifully, ends there. He's home again, still struggling to understand what he'd just seen. In a few years, Darim will be with Marcello. He will be… (shame, guilt, anger, confusion, sorrow—what is he supposed to  _ feel  _ about this? He feels all of those things, and more) He will be happier with Marcello than he is with Rory. Because Rory can tell—he knows Darim, he knows what Darim sounds like when he's with Rory, and he knows that happiness can't hold a candle to how he'd sounded when he was with Marcello.

Rory hugs himself, and wishes desperately that it didn't have to end. But… well. How is he supposed to look Darim in the eye now? Knowing that in the future, Darim will love Marcello in a way that goes above and beyond anything he has ever felt for Rory.

Darim has never said that to Rory. He has never said  _ I love you  _ like that. Darim falls hard and fast when he falls in love, he had fallen harder for Rory than he had for Elena, and Marcello... Apparently, Darim will fall even harder.

It's all over, he knows it is. No matter how hard Rory tries to convince himself that they can move past this, that the future doesn't have to be set in stone, he knows they're done. Visiting can't change the future, and Rory would have to be very selfish indeed to keep Darim from being happy.

But that doesn't stop it from hurting. It doesn't stop Rory from shaking and crying like his whole world has come crashing down on him.


	66. Chapter 66

"I never see you anymore."

Darim says the words quietly, without looking at Rory. He doesn't want to see the expression on Rory's face, the distant distraction he's gotten so used to lately.

"What do you mean?" Rory asks. His fingers against Darim's bare back are warm, strong and calloused from climbing. "I'm here now." He knows all the places to touch Darim to make him feel better. Darim shivers under the touch, and everything in him wants to move closer to Rory, to be nearer him and his fingers. But... there's something off about Rory today, there's been something off about him for a while.

Instead of moving closer, Darim rolls over in bed so that their faces are only inches apart. "That's not what I mean," he says. "I mean… even when we're together, you're a million miles away. You're distracted, and I feel like I can't get through to you anymore."

"I'm not trying to hurt you," Rory says.

"I know that," Darim says quickly. "But I just… I wanted to talk to you about it. Because that's what a relationship is, right? It's all about good communication and telling the other person when something's bothering you."

"And it's bothering you that I haven't been paying attention?" Rory asks. Darim feels a little spike of irritation—here he is, worried and upset, and Rory hadn't even noticed—

"Yes," he says. Calmly, the way his father has always taught him to be calm, even when things are going wrong. Panicking doesn't make things better, he always says, it just makes it harder to think and then you make bad decisions. It's harder than usual now, because Darim doesn't want to be calm, and he doesn't particularly want to think. He just wants to lose himself in Rory, in the feel of him all around, and not think about anything else.

"Oh," Rory says. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Darim says. "We can work through this, I know we can. That's why I brought it up in the first place."

"I don't…" Rory sits up in bed and Darim reluctantly follows his example. "We need to talk."

Darim is really starting to hate those words. Elena had used the exact same phrase when she'd told him that their relationship wasn't really working anymore, that maybe it was time to try seeing other people. At the time, Darim hadn't wanted to see anyone else, he'd just wanted her—it had taken a while to get over the aching hurt in his chest, and then he'd found Rory and everything had been alright again.

He's not ready to lose Rory too, and Darim suddenly wishes he could go back in time and take every word back. He'd thought that bringing this up would make things  _ better _ , not… not…

"What do we need to talk about?"

"Us," Rory says, after what feels like the world's longest pause. "And how maybe… I guess I'm just not in a good place for a relationship right now. Maybe we should stop meeting like this."

"Why?" Darim whispers. "Why don't you just tell me what's wrong? Maybe we can work it out together."

"It's Jeanne," Rory says.

" _ Jeanne _ ? You're too distracted by your sister to pay attention to me?"

"She's a templar now," Rory says. "I need to show her that she's making a mistake. I need to  _ protect _ her, Darim, but she just keeps fighting me on this."

"I don't think she needs protecting," Darim says.

"She's wrong, though," Rory says, and he sounds absolutely miserable. "You're an assassin, you  _ know _ the templars are dangerous. Jeanne's going to get hurt, or they'll brainwash her—I just need her to come back to our side. Before it's too late."

"But she wants to be a templar," Darim says. "That's not always bad—your father's a templar. So was my mother. They're both good people."

But Rory only shakes his head determinedly. "That's alright for them," he says. "But there are so many awful templars in the world. I just don't want to see Jeanne end up like them. I need to help her."

"I don't think it works like that—"

"How would you feel if Sef joined the templars?" Rory asks. "I bet you wouldn't be okay with it then."

"Sure I would!" Darim says. "He's my brother, and he's smart enough to make his own decisions. I mean, he would never do that, because our mother keeps telling us that the templars in this time weren't all that nice as people. But—"

"I'm glad you brought this up, actually," Rory says. "I've been thinking about it for a while, I just didn't know how to bring it up. But since we're talking about it anyway—I just can't do this right now Darim, I really can't. It's not you, I can't be with anyone until I know Jeanne's going to be okay. You understand, don't you?"

"No!" Darim says. "Rory, I don't understand any of this, I don't--why are you..." His breathing is ragged and uneven, he doesn't know where this is coming from. "Jeanne? She's really the reason you're breaking up with me?"

"Yes," Rory says, and the lie is stamped plain as day across his face.

"Rory."

"Well I mean... it's part of it. But I saw... I saw you--"

But then his visit ends, and Darim never finds out what Rory had seen him doing, what he's done wrong to ruin everything so completely. Just like that, Rory is _gone_ , and Darim is left lying alone in his bed. So that's it. Just like that, Darim is alone again, and it doesn't hurt any less than it had when Elena left. Maybe it hurts more.

He pulls his knees up to his chest and wipes violently at his eyes. Why is he crying? It's so stupid, and he's never going to be able to explain this to his parents if they walk in now. But he's crying and crying and he can't stop.

"You're dead!"

Darim shudders and shakes his head as the day's second visitor arrives—well, at least he hadn't been around to see Darim have his heart broken. "Not now, Marcello," he says, pushing him away. "Can't you just give it a break?"

"Sorry," Marcello says, startled. "I didn't realize something was wrong. What happened?"

Darim looks up at him, very aware that his eyes are red. This is an older Marcello, thirty at least. He's (sort of) calmer than the Marcello that Darim is used to, and (slightly) more mature. "Nothing," Darim mumbles.

"But you're crying." Marcello says.

"Just got dumped," Darim mutters. He doesn't look at Marcello.

"I'm sorry," Marcello says again. "Elena?"

"Rory." He almost starts crying again at the reminder that this is the second time in two years that this has happened. And Elena has moved on, she's with Matthew and they're so obviously in love that sometimes Darim still feels like something in him is dying when he sees them together. And it's not jealousy, not exactly, because if they're happy then he doesn't want to take that away from either of them. But he's jealous of that kind of relationship, that kind of happiness.

Darim is starting to despair of ever having anything like that for another person.

And Jeanne has Jacob, and Jacob has Jeanne—Jenny is alone but then again there's so much wrong in her life that Darim feels bad comparing his problems to hers. It just doesn't seem fair that everyone else has someone, and he doesn't. Everyone?

"Do you have a girlfriend, Marcello?" Darim asks. "Or a boyfriend? Or—" he remembers that this is an older Marcello. "A wife? Husband?"

"I have… someone, yes," Marcello says. "Why?"

Darim shrugs, miserably. "Doesn't matter." It's just that he can't stand the thought of watching other people fall in love while his heart is in a million pieces. "I thought Elena and I would be a good couple," he says. "She's smart, and she likes me. We could talk for hours.  _ And  _ she's an assassin. I've always known I want to fall in love with someone that's an assassin, you know? So we could share that. But that didn't work out. And then I thought, well, Rory—and he's passionate and caring, and he's an assassin too. But he cares so much about the brotherhood that all he can think about is how his sister isn't in it. So now I don't know what I want, except I know I'm not over Rory yet but  _ he's  _ over me…" he trails off. "Sorry. Babbling."

"It's okay," Marcello says. "I like to hear you talk."

"What am I supposed to do?"

"Do you really want my advice?"

Darim nods.

"Really? Because usually you just tell me to be quiet."

Darim actually manages to smile a tiny bit. "That's because you're  _ always  _ talking," he says. "And anyway, you have… you have someone. Someone you love. Clearly you're doing something right."

Marcello smiles sadly back at him. "I have two pieces of advice," he says. "First, don't give up. Giving up on love would be the saddest thing. And second…" He hugs Darim briefly, and Darim has to admit it's comforting. "Maybe think about looking somewhere else? Maybe the person you end up with doesn't have to be an assassin."

"Maybe," Darim says doubtfully. "Do you think I could fall in love with a templar?"

Marcello hesitates a long moment before he says, "I guess it's... possible."

Darim sits there in silence, thinking this over, and Marcello sits next to him with one arm around his shoulder. He doesn't ask any more questions, doesn't push and doesn't insist that Darim go on talking. He just sits there quietly, and Darim sort of loves him for it.


	67. Chapter 67

"Matthew," Elena says when he appears next to her. She's not looking at him. She's lying flat on her back on her bedroom floor, feet pressed against the door.

"Elena," Matthew says. "Why are you on the floor?"

For answer, she pats the carpet next to her and Matthew obligingly lies down. "I still don't get it," he says, when he's made himself as comfortable as possible, and the silence has begun to strech.

"I'm just thinking," she says.

"You don't have to think on the floor," Matthew says, poking her. "That's silly."

"I just kind of ended up here," Elena says. "I don't know. I told you, I'm _thinking_."

"What about?" Matthew asks.

She hesitates, almost like she doesn't want to tell him, and Matthew nudges her with his shoulder. "Come on," he says. "You can tell me."

"I know," Elena says at once. But she doesn't say anything else, not for a while. And then at last, she says, "Grandpa wanted to talk to me this morning."

"Yea? What about?"

"It's my tenth birthday today."

"I don't get it," Matthew says, after thinking this over for a second. "Is there something people do in the future when it's their tenth birthday? Is it a future thing?"

"No," Elena says. "But… I don't know. Dad always told me we'd start talking about assassin stuff on my tenth birthday. But then this morning he told me that he and grandpa have to talk to me together. I'm… worried."

"Why?" Matthew asks.

"Because I wanna be an assassin!" Elena wails. "And grandpa's not an assassin, so... so what if he wants me to be a templar? I don't want to be a templar but I don't want to disappoint him, either."

"You're being dumb," Matthew scoffs. He's trying not to think about how he'd turned ten a whole month ago, and no one had talked to him about assassins or templars. His mom made his favorite dinner and told him he was growing up too fast and that was it. Matthew would give almost _anything_ to have something exciting like this happen. Oh well. Maybe, if he still lived with his dad, but… he doesn't. "You're not going to disappoint him, he's your _grandpa_."

For a second, he sees the look of relief that washes across Elena's face—then it's gone and she's making an obvious effort to keep her expression serious. "I'm not dumb," she says, elbowing him in the side.

"Are too—" He elbows her back and then they're wrestling on the ground, giggling in quiet, gaspy voices because everyone in this time knows about visiting but it's just habit by now not to make weird noises or do weird stuff or say weird things on visits. Neither of them notices when the bedroom door opens and Elena's dad comes in. He looks uncertainly at Matthew and Elena—or, just Elena, since he can't even see Matthew—and says, "You're with a visitor, right? You're not just hitting yourself?"

Elena pushes herself away from Matthew, who amuses himself by poking her and tugging on her braid while she tries not to laugh. "Yea, dad," she says. "Matty's visiti— _stop_ it, Matty!" she swats his hands away and Matthew blows on her neck, which makes Elena start laughing again. She laughs so hard that her shoulders shake, and she has to put her hands over her mouth to keep from being too loud.

"Okay then," her dad says. He considers this for minute, then nods. "Well if you're ready, grandpa and I are waiting to talk to you."

Elena stops laughing, and her hands drop from her mouth to fidget nervously in her lap. "But you said it was private," she says. "Just you, me, and grandpa."

"Well, yea," Elena's dad says. "But Matthew's your visitor, so that's different. He's not just anyone to you, is he?"

Elena looks sideways at him, and Matthew tries not to feel too proud about being different. He likes feeling like he's so much a part of Elena's life that he gets to bend the rules a little. "No," Elena tells her dad. "He's special." And when her dad turns around to lead the way down, Elena's hand darts out and grabs Matthew's. He knows she's nervous, so he squeezes as hard as he can. Elena squeezes back and then they get into a hand squeezing contest until Elena's dad turns around and then Elena has to pretend to be serious again.

Matthew tries to be serious too. "Just pretend I'm not here," he tells her.

"But I _want_ you to be here," Elena says. "You're helping me feel better."

That feels good. He likes helping.

They go down to Elena's dad's room, where her grandpa is waiting for them. Matthew's grandpa, too—he always forgets that part. It's just so _weird_ to him, because Matthew had never known the man before he ended up in the future, it's hard for Matthew to think of his grandpa as someone from his own time.

It's very quiet in the room. Grandpa sits on the bed, and Elena's dad perches uncomfortably on the opposite end—Elena sits down on the desk chair, making sure to leave some room for Matthew. They press close together, both suddenly nervous by the quiet and the serious atmosphere. Finally, Elena looks pleadingly at her dad, like she's begging him to just get it over with, and says, "What did you want to talk to me about?"

But it's grandpa that answers. "You're ten years old today," he says. "Old enough to start your training."

"To be an assassin," Elena says. "Right?"

"If that's what you want," her dad says. "Then yes, we can start training you to be an assassin."

"But we've been talking," grandpa says. "And I want to make sure that you know you would be welcome in the Order if that's what you want. I know—" He holds up a hand as if expecting Elena will interrupt him, but she doesn't even try. "You and your dad have talked about the assassins before this. But you know what Shay and I fight for, you know the difference between the Brotherhood and the Order."

Elena nods, just a tiny fraction.

"And I just want you to know that the option is open for you if you think you might agree more with the Templars."

Elena looks at her dad, who says, "It's up to you, Elena. And… if you need more time to think about it, that's alright too."

She's looking sideways at Matthew now, clearly bursting to tell him something, and Matthew leans sideways against her, into her body. Yuck. He hates being a girl, but it's for a good cause. The second Elena is invisible to her dad and grandpa, she jumps off the chair and starts pacing, fingers twisting nervously together. "That's not fair!" she protests. "Matty! I want to be an assassin, like dad, I don't want to be a templar. The templars kidnapped me, they kidnapped my dad, they're _bad_." She pauses, clearly guilty, and says, "Not all templars. Not grandpa or Shay or mom. And I know they say Abstergo aren't really templars but I still never, never, _ever_ want to be one of them." She looks at Matthew again, and he sees that she looks like she's going to cry. "But I don't want to hurt grandpa's feelings…"

"Elena?" Elena's dad says, and Matthew realizes with a jolt that both the adults in the room are looking at him. Right. Because he's in her body right now and just kind of staring at something they can't see. He thinks about giving Elena her body back so she can finish the conversation, but then remembers that everyone here actually knows about visiting. He can actually help her.

"I'm Matthew," he says, in Elena's voice.

Grandpa jerks, nerves or guilt or something, his face is suddenly unhappy, and Elena's dad shakes his head. "Matthew," he says. "It's okay that you're here, obviously, but we really do have to talk to Elena right now."

" _No_ ," Matthew says. He slides off the chair and walks to Elena, hugging her tight. She clings to him. "You made her really sad, okay? Because she really doesn't want to be a templar but she doesn't want to hurt grandpa's feelings." He glares at both of them. "That wasn't fair to ask."

"Elena," grandpa says. He sort of looks in her direction, at where Matthew is hugging her. "You're not hurting my feelings at all. If you want to be an assassin then I support you absolutely. Just like I support your father. But I wanted to make sure you knew all your options, just in case."

Elena doesn't say anything out loud, but Matthew knows her as well as he knows himself, as well as he knows any of his visitors, and the expression on her face, the way she's looking hopefully at her dad, is enough to tell him exactly what she's thinking.

"She _does_ want to be an assassin," he says.

"But—" Elena tugs at his sleeve. "Matty, can I have my body?"

He surrenders it at once and she dashes over to grandpa. "But I still love you lots."

"I love you too," he says. "…Elena?"

"Yea," she says. "I'm Elena again."

Her dad joins the hug, and Matthew kind of loiters around the doorway until the hug breaks up. When everyone is sufficiently reassured that Elena is going to be an assassin and no one is upset about it, she's allowed to leave again. Matthew thinks she looks _much_ happier leaving than she had coming in.

"Thanks, Matty," she says. "I was too scared to say what you said."

"Sure," he says. "I always have your back."

"Me too," Elena says. "I have your back too, whenever you need me."

-//-

The incident sticks with Matthew, for months and years after. He has always trusted his visitors, of course. The first visit he can remember had come when he was two, crying in bed because there was thunder and lightning outside and it terrified him. Darim had appeared out of nothing next to him, no older than Matthew but absolutely unafraid of the storm outside. And Matthew had just known, deep down inside him, that this was someone he could trust.

He one hundred percent trusts his visitors because _they are his visitors_. It's all the reasoning he needs. But Elena is different. After he helps her out on her tenth birthday, he comes to her on his next visit, spills all his worries about wanting to be an assassin but being stuck with his mom instead of his dad. And she helps. Later, Elena confides in him that training to be an assassin is _hard,_ and he reminds her why she'd wanted it so badly in the first place. Matthew whines about not being able to tell anyone in his time about visitors, and she hugs him until it doesn't matter.

He tells her everything, and she does the same. They share all their problems, they take the natural trust that exists between them as visitors and carve it into something strong and precious. They are there for one another, always, without question. When Elena visits Matthew and realizes she can help him in some way, she simply does it. No questions asked. If Matthew is visiting and realizes the same, he returns the favor. Matthew comes to love being around Elena, comes to love that she will not judge him for his weaknesses, only help, that she knows everything about him that matters, and that he knows everything about her. They have no secrets from one another, and sometimes Matthew feels his life is nothing but.

Still, it takes him an embarrassingly long time to realize that he does not simply love being around Elena, he actually loves _her_. And then somehow, miracle of miracles, when they are teenagers, Matthew kisses her for the first time.

And that first time is amazing. It's the most natural thing in the world, it's like—it's like everything between them has been leading up to this moment from the very beginning, like he's just been waiting and waiting for this to finally happen and now it has and it's _perfect_.

"I love you," he tells her one night, a few months into their relationship. She's visiting him and they've climbed up to the roof to look at the stars—because there _are_ stars, in Matthew's time. Elena has _light pollution_.

"I love you," she says. "You have my back, you've always had my back."

Matthew smiles. He feels like he's going to burst. "But you have my heart," he says.

Elena scoffs at him, but he can see her blush. "Lame," she says, which Matthew does not believe at all because in the next instant she's kissing him.


	68. Chapter 68

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I was reading the Unity novelization today and discovered that Elise and Jenny met at one point. Naturally, my first instinct was to rewrite how it might have gone in visitorverse.

Elise very rarely gets to see Arno anymore, which just makes their rare times together all the more valuable. He is a perpetually bright spot in her life, a reminder of her all too brief childhood. Today, like their other rare meetings of the past few years, they begin with an embrace, which moves quickly onto kissing, and ends with conversation. Long, rambling conversations about everything in their lives that matters, and then everything that doesn't. They are seventeen. Elise is briefly at home from school, the school that she hates, and Arno is… well, Arno is Arno. Bright eyed and hopeful, and Elise thinks fondly that surely, he will never change. No. Not her Arno.

But—something about him is different. Not something in him, he is still the same person he has always been, but something about him. Halfway through the conversation Elise realizes that Arno is not paying as much attention to what she's saying as he had been fifteen minutes before. It is selfish, perhaps, but she wants his attention focused entirely on her.

"Arno," she says. "What are you looking at?"

He colors at once and says "Nothing," the way a little boy might after being caught taking food from the kitchen. Elise knows that tone well. She'd been the little girl standing next to him with her own armful of liberated treats.

"And what does nothing look like?" she asks.

He struggles for a second, then says, "A man."

It's not exactly what Elise had expected, and she swings her head around to look at whoever has interrupted them—but the room is empty, apart from herself and Arno. Arno, who looks distinctly uncomfortable and says, "He says you can't see him."

There's a smile trying to push its way onto Elise's face, because she very much wants to believe that this is a joke of some kind. But Arno isn't smiling—is he seeing things? Hallucinating?

"And does this… man I can't see have a name?" she asks.

"Um—" Arno pauses a second, as if listening to something. "He says Connor."

"Connor?" Not a French name. Certainly a strange one for Arno's imagination to have conjured up.

"Oh!" Arno's worried expression smoothes away, and he smiles. "Never mind," he says. "He's gone now."

"Gone?"

Arno shrugs, and clearly thinks no more about it. But for whatever reason, the incident sticks in Elise's mind.

-//-

She is sent on her first mission as a templar three years later, although—perhaps _sent_ is the wrong word. Elise has more or less forced herself into the assignment, although she is not—to be completely honest—happy with what that assignment turns out to be. Infiltrating the home of one Jennifer Scott, whose brother had once been a grandmaster of the templar order, and acquire the letters he'd sent her before his death.

But even if it's not what Elise had been expecting, she still turns her full attentions to it. It is her first mission, after all. And she does not intend to return empty handed. For four days, Elise is distracted by Jennifer's servants. Every morning, they tell her the same thing—that she is a very private woman, that she is unwell, that she will see Elise when she is feeling well enough. It is not until the fourth day that Elise realizes she has had the wool very _thoroughly_ pulled over her eyes, and that Jennifer had never been in the house in Queen's Square at all.

Once she figure it out, there are signs everywhere Elise looks. In the servants' eyes, in the dust that coats nearly every surface of the house, in the absolute silence. Jennifer Scott is not here, and has not been for some time.

Elise is barely twenty. She knows that no one will expect her to pursue this any further.

But she does not intend to fail.

She remains another week in the house where Jennifer does not live. She watches the servants, and eventually identifies the one that seems the least loyal to his absentee mistress. Elise corners him away from the others, she offers him money and argues until he is finally convinced to tell her the truth. Jennifer has gone to America, to live with her nephew.

"Then why keep a staff on here?" Elise asks. "What are all of you supposed to be doing?"

He eyes her purse and she shoves another coin into his open palm. It disappears with alarming quickness.

"She wants to know if anyone comes to see her," the man says. "Our job is just to keep the house open, and let her know if anyone comes to find her."

But why, Elise wonders when she's left the house and found passage after Jennifer. Her brother had been a templar, is she worried about assassins? Or—her father had been an assassin, is she worried about templars? No. With a family like that, Elise can well believe that Jennifer might see enemies everywhere she looks.

She hopes that Jennifer will not see her as one of those enemies. No doubt the servants have sent a letter ahead to Jennifer already, informing her that someone has come asking after her. That is their main job, after all. But Elise only wants letters, she has no argument with Jennifer herself.

The journey takes weeks, and seems to Elise to take even longer. And after that there is still travel overland to the place where Jennifer's nephew lives. Elise has the location, but she hasn't had time to gather any information on the place or the nephew himself. It's possibly a mistake, not gathering more information before after going after Jennifer, but Elise is convinced of her own abilities. And so she arrives on Jennifer's door unannounced and unprepared, ready to do whatever it takes to get the letters she's been sent after.

Jennifer is out on the porch when Elise arrives, and she does not look surprised to see her. "You are Elise de la Serre, aren't you."

The way she asks it is not a question, but Elise answers anyway. "Yes," she says.

"I've had word of you from my people back in London," Jennifer says. "And my sister told me the moment your ship arrived."

"Your sister?" Elise asks. She knows of course that Jennifer had once had a brother, Haytham. His letters are the reason Elise is here. But she's heard nothing of a sister, and somehow it makes her nervous to realize how little she knows about Jennifer, compared to how much Jennifer knows about her.

"She knows the docks inside and out," Jennifer says. "She sailed herself for years, but these days she's getting older." She nods absentmindedly, and then her focus sharpens. "But you're not here to hear about my sister, are you? No, it's my brother you're interested in."

"Yes," Elise admits. She knows there is no point lying. Jennifer has been forewarned of Elise's intentions. The best she can do now is be as convincing as she can, and hope for the best. Elise knows she can be very convincing, and she has spent most of her journey her rehearsing the kinds of things she should say. Now she opens her mouth, ready to dive into her prepared speech.

Jennifer beats her to the punch. "I have Haytham's letters with me here," she says, gesturing to a bag at her side. "You're welcome to them."

"Just…" Elise can't quite believe it's this easy. "Just like that?"

Jennifer's mouth twitches in a smile. "I have other ways to remember my brother," she says.

"Better than his letters?"

"I have this friend I… visit occasionally," Jennifer says. "And when I'm there, it's almost like I can see my brother in person. And besides that, I… well, this same friend has a father who knows someone close to you."

"Who?" Elise asks. She doesn't know how many people she has in her life that she would actually call a friend. There's just Arno, really, and Elise is having some trouble connecting the dots between her closest friend and this elderly Englishwoman hiding in an American forest.

"Someone that cares for you very much," Jennifer says. "Someone that—" she laughs a moment. "Apparently will not shut up about you. My friend's father and _his_ friends tease him about it, but I've heard enough about him to trust his judgment. If he thinks you're a good person, then I'm willing to do so as well."

"Thank you," Elise says. Jennifer nods, and leans forward to hand the bag over. Elise opens it and finds a sheaf of letters, all signed _Haytham_.

"And now," Jennifer says. "I suggest you leave."

"Leave?" Elise echoes. She had not necessarily been expecting a warm welcome, but it's been a long journey and she's only just arrived.

"Do you know where you are, Elise?" Jennifer asks, almost kindly.

"Not… exactly," Elise admits. "Your nephew's home."

"Well—yes," Jennifer says. "My nephew, Connor, who happens to be the mentor of the Assassin Brotherhood her."

Elise freezes, as if ice has suddenly flooded her veins. Stupid, _stupid_ —she's just walked into an assassin stronghold, she's sitting here, having a casual conversation with Jennifer, and all the time there are assassins here. This is—oh, _God_ , she is stupid.

"I—you're right, I should go. I…" Elise stands and stumbles backward, more scared than she wants to admit. But something makes her pause—it's nonsensical to be thinking of this just now, but suddenly Elise is thinking of that day three years ago, the invisible Connor that had appeared to Arno and not to her.

"Elise?" Jennifer says.

"Your nephew," Elise says. "Does he know someone called Arno Dorian…?"

Jennifer smiles at her, satisfied and amused, but does not answer. She simply says, "Go."

So Elise goes. On her way back to the place where she has left her stolen horse, she passes a large man in white robes and is so nervous she nearly runs into her. The man stops as Elise trips, reaches down a hand to help her to her feet.

"I'm fine," Elise mumbles, stumbling to her feet and scrambling away. She is not wearing anything to show her allegiance to the templars, but Elise has never actually killed a man before, and if this man somehow figures out who and what she is…

Elise takes off running before he can get a good look at her.

-//-

Connor watches the young woman go, then turns to look at Haytham, bemused. "One of yours?" he asks. She'd been bright red in eagle vision.

"You killed all of _my_ templars, save Shay," his father says. "And Charles, although I have no doubt you'll find your way to him eventually." Connor tries not to look at him. "In any case, you seem to have scared her away."

Connor nods. It's odd, certainly, but she's running away from the homestead and looks like she has no intention of returning. At the house, he finds his aunt sitting on the porch, smiling softly to herself.

"Aunt Jenny?" he says. "Did you see a young woman here earlier?"

"Oh yes," his aunt says. "Elise had some business with me. Nothing you need to worry about."

"You had business with a templar?"

She turns her smile on him. "Business that is now concluded," she says. "She came for Haytham's letters to me, nothing more."

"And you _gave_ them to her?" Haytham demands, so surprised he seems to forget that his sister can't see him. His voice rises, almost petulantly. "Those were private!"

Jenny excuses herself then, and so Connor spends the rest of the afternoon trying to convince his father of why it would be a bad idea to chase the girl down and retrieve his letters.

"But they were _private_ ," Haytham grumbles, and pouts like a child.

-//-

Jenny watches from an upstairs window, trying not to laugh.

"That was Arno's Elise, wasn't it?" Rory asks. He is visiting, older even than Jenny at the moment, and she has already had great fun calling him decrepit. She very rarely gets to be the youngest one in the room anymore.

"I assume so," she says. "He talks enough about her, I feel like I already knew her." Not that either of them have really heard him, visiting being what it is. But the rest of A-Team complains about his swooning (Ezio's word) so much that B-Team has been able to pick up on it from visits to Elena.

"Well, the dates line up," Rory says. "It was probably her. Is that why you gave her what she came for?"

Jenny nods. "Arno's not _our_ visitor," she says. "But he's still _a_ visitor. And Elise is so important to him—what does it cost me to help?"

"Well, I imagine Haytham won't be happy if he ever hears what you did with his letters," Rory says.

"True," Jenny says. "But imagine the look on his face." She grins at Rory. "And what's the point in a little brother if you can't tease him, occasionally?"


	69. Chapter 69

It's funny (but not the kind of funny that makes Arno want to laugh) that being visited by a six year old Jacob really isn't that different from being visited by an adult Jacob. The kid had shown up nearly an hour ago, reacted not at all to suddenly finding himself in Paris, and proceeded to immediately attach himself to Arno's side.

"Can't you play with me?" he whines now, half running and half skipping to keep up with Arno's longer stride.

"No, Jacob," Arno says. He's used to Jacob distracting him during missions—this isn't really a new experience. "I have business to take care of."

"What kind of business?"

"Assassin business," Arno says, without stopping or looking down at Jacob. He just keeps walking, at least for another few steps. Then he finds himself suddenly unable to keep walking, and when he looks back he sees it's because Jacob has frozen in place. Arno walks back to him, hesitant because he doesn't know why Jacob is suddenly looking at him like that—Arno can't even recognize the expression there. On anyone else, he'd have called it fear. But he's never seen Jacob afraid.

Jacob backs up a couple of steps, then his back hits a wall and he stops. "Are you going to kill me?" he asks.

"No…" Arno tries to smile, but it falls away when Jacob doesn't look any less afraid. "Why would I kill you?"

"You just said you're an assassin," Jacob says. "They kill people."

"I mean…" That's hard to argue. "Not just anyone," Arno says. "I do the same thing your parents do."

Jacob crosses his arms and makes an obvious effort to look brave. "My parents are _good_ people," he says. "They don't—they don't kill people!" His voice rises petulantly. "And someday dad's gonna come back for me and Evie, he's gonna…" He stomps his foot and shoves his way past Arno. "He's not a bad guy!"

"Jacob!" Arno curses and dashes after his visitor, but the streets are crowded and Jacob is smaller than Arno. If not for whatever it is that ties visitors together, Arno would have lost him altogether. Instead, he is able to chase Jacob down the street, around a corner, then down a street that dead ends in front of a church. With no other choice, Jacob dashes inside, up what feels like five flights of stairs, and comes out on the roof. Jacob trips, falls, makes a little noise around his panting.

Then he looks up and sees Arno, and for a second he looks like he's going to bolt again. Arno grabs Jacob around the middle, holds him still as he screams and cries. He goes on for a long time, still crying, still trying to get away from Arno. But little by little as he tires himself out, Arno is able to pull Jacob backward, into his lap. He rocks him gently, running his free hand through Jacob's messy hair to soothe him. It's not something he would have done with an adult Jacob, because the adult Jacob would have enjoyed it, but it's different now while Jacob is a child. Scared and upset.

"He's not bad," Jacob says. "My dad's gonna come back, he _is_."

"I know he is," Arno says. He knows a lot about Jacob's childhood, because Jacob doesn't really know how to stop talking once he starts. He knows that Jacob's mother had died in childbirth, that he and Evie had been sent to live with their grandmother while their father traveled, doing work for the brotherhood, going as far as India but never back home to see his children. And then he'd come back and started training the twins as assassins. Arno had always assumed they'd known about the assassins before then. He would never have been so open about mentioning the brotherhood in front of Jacob, had he known.

"You said he's a bad guy," Jacob says.

"I said he's an assassin," Arno says, watching Jacob's expression carefully to see if he'll get upset again. His lip wobbles a little but he doesn't say anything. "Not a bad guy."

"An assassin," Jacob echoes. He looks up at Arno, and seems to take some comfort from whatever he sees on his face. "Like you. Are _you_ a good person?"

"I try. I try to help people."

Jacob thinks about it. He's still thinking when Arno says, "Can I show you something?"

"Fine," Jacob says. Arno stands up and offers Jacob his hand. Jacob takes it and says, "What are we going to do?"

Something stupid. "Something fun," Arno tells him, and tugs gently at Jacob to get him moving.

"I like fun," Jacob says. Arno rolls his eyes. Never change, Jacob.

Arno stands up and leads Jacob closer to the edge of the roof. He makes sure to keep a good grip on Jacob's hand just in case Jacob decides to throw himself over the edge. "Look," he says.

"Look at what?" Jacob says.

"This is Paris," Arno says.

"No," Jacob says. "Paris is in Spain. I live in England."

Arno hesitates, torn between correcting Jacob's geography and trying to explain how visiting works. Eventually he decides to just move on. "There are bad people here. And they hurt others. They… well, I wish those bad people didn't have to die. There's already been enough death in this city." He's thinking of his own father, of Elise's. There has been _more_ than enough death. "But sometimes there's no other choice."

"Okay," Jacob says. He's looking out at the city, holding tight to Arno. "And dad? Do you think he only does bad things because he has to?"

"Yea," Arno says. "Yea, I think so."

"And he'll still come back?" Jacob asks. "Do you think he'll come get me and Evie?"

"Definitely," Arno says, and that seems to reassure Jacob more than anything else. Maybe it's not so surprising—he's six years old, what does he know about death, about the way people hurt each other, about assassins and templars? But his dad coming back, that's something he can wrap his head around. Whatever the reason, at least he's smiling again.

"You said we were going to do something fun," Jacob says. "What are we going to do up here that's fun?"

"We're going to jump off the roof," Arno says, and Jacob reacts exactly the way he'd expected—his face breaks out in a huge grin, and he squeezes Arno's hand tighter.

"Really? _Really_?"

Arno leans down and wraps his arms around Jacob. The kid is vibrating with excitement, and Arno has to tell him three times to calm down before Jacob finally manages to be still. "Hold on," he says when he finally has a firm hold on Jacob.

"Yea," Jacob says. "Okay, okay—"

The next sound out of his mouth is a shout of surprise and then delighted, joyful laughter as Arno takes a leap of faith off the roof. He's done dozens of these, but this one is different. Jacob's breathless laughter in his ear doesn't stop, all the way down.

They land in a hay cart at street level and Jacob twists around to hug Arno around the neck.

"Ow," Arno complains. "Jacob, I need to breathe—"

"You're not so bad," Jacob says.

Arno doesn't say anything, but does matter a strangled noise of some kind. He pats Jacob on the back once or twice before the boy vanishes from on top of him, visit over.


	70. Chapter 70

Jeanne had been on the ground, bleeding from a fresh wound on her hand, when Darim came to visit. She's not badly injured, not compared to the kinds of injuries assassins and templars tend to pick up, but it's still bleeding.

"What did you do to yourself, anyway?" Darim asks when he's crouched over her, examining the wound.

"Doesn't matter," Jeanne says, and it's hard to tell under the more obvious pain on her face, but Darim thinks she might almost look guilty.

"Your whole hand is sliced up," Darim says. "You won't be able to hold anything for at least a month. What did you do?"

"Can't you just finish wrapping it?" she asks. "It's hard to do with only one hand."

"Of course I'm going to wrap it," Darim says, reaching for her bandages. "But I'm worried about you. You're usually very careful with your weapons."

"It wasn't my weapon," Jeanne admits.

"Did you borrow something of Rory's?" Darim asks. But no, that doesn't make sense. They've ended up on opposite sides, but they're siblings. They'd grown up together, they've both learned a lot of the same things from their parents. It's only later that their training went down different paths. Jeanne should be able to use her brother's weapons, most of them anyway. All except—

"I just wanted to try it," Jeanne says, not looking at him. "Even dad has one."

"But he was an assassin once," Darim points out. "He's had the training, he knows how to use a hidden blade."

"Yea," Jeanne says. "I guess so."

"Did you take his?" Darim asks.

"No."

"Rory's?"

"No." Jeanne pulls her hand away, examining the fresh bandages on her palm. "My mother's. She didn't know, she's not home. And I don't really know why, but Darim, I feel—I'm disappointed, I guess. It's like everyone else in my family has a hidden blade but I'm not… good enough, I guess."

"Well, you haven't had training," Darim says. He holds up his own hand, palm up, so the hidden blade there is not so hidden. "You can't just strap one of those on and hope for the best, you have to learn to use it safely. And…" He closes his palm into a fist, pulls the arm back toward himself. "You're never going to have that training. You're a templar, not an assassin."

"Dad could train me," Jeanne says.

"He could," Darim says. "But do you think he will?"

"No," Jeanne admits. "I've asked him. He says the same thing you're saying. That it's an assassin's weapon, and it's not his place to teach me."

"And your mother?"

Jeanne sighs. She starts to lean back on her hands, but Darim grabs her arm before she can put weight on her inured hand. "Thanks," she mutters, resettling herself.

"Your mother?" Darim prompts.

"I can't really ask her," Jeanne says. "This family is… I love my family. Maybe even Rory."

"I won't tell him," Darim promises.

"I love them," Jeanne says again, like she wants to make sure Darim knows it. As if he hasn't seen it for himself a hundred times.

"But?" he prompts.

"But sometimes living in this family is like walking a tightrope," Jeanne says. "Two assassins and two templars. It's not like your family, where your mother left the order. My parents are both active. Rory and I will be as well, when we're done training. There are things we can't talk about, or… shouldn't talk about, I guess. It's funny, almost. Philippe, Tomas—they're not exactly normal, but they're normal by this family's standards. And we'll all complain that Philippe's boring, or Tomas is going to get himself killed trying to be a pirate, but the truth is they're not assassins or templars. They don't care about an of it. Sometimes they're the ones that hold this family together."

"Then why did you take your mother's hidden blade?" Darim asks.

Jeanne sighs and shakes her head. "I don't know," she says. "I just hate being left out, and I wanted to be able to do this thing that everyone else in my family can do. I hate that I'm not allowed to learn. I wouldn't even use it, I understand that it's an assassin weapon, I do. I'm just tired of all these… lines between the people in my family. It's stupid, maybe, I know being able to use a hidden blade wouldn't change anything. But it would be something we all have in common. We need more of that."

Darim can't pretend to understand what that's like. He is an assassin. His father is an assassin. His brother is an assassin. His mother… well, she had been a templar, but her days in the order are long past. They're all on the same side, they fight together. Darim makes the effort, trying to imagine what it must be like for Jeanne and the rest of her family.

"You could ask Jacob," he says at last. "She'd help."

"Yea," Jeanne says. She smiles a bit.. "She would, wouldn't she? I'd never be able to tell my parents where I learned to use the blade, but at least I'd know." She sighs, shaking her head. "I just want to _know_ , that's all. I just don’t want to be left out."

Darim pats her on the shoulder. He doesn’t know what to say, but he has every intention to stay there just as long as she needs him—unfortunately, that's when visiting snatches him away again, and Darim can't do anything but hope that things work out for Jeanne. He can't actually help her.

"What's the matter?" his father asks him when he notices Darim moping during training that afternoon. They're doing drills with hidden blades, and Darim can't stop thinking of Jeanne. She doesn't get to do this with her parents.

"Nothing," Darim says. "I'm just thinking of this… friend of mine. She needed some help and I’m not sure I gave her enough."

"Of course you did," his father says, without even pausing to think about it. "I know you did the best you can, Darim.  You always do. Now, pay attention to the way you hold your blade during counter attacks…"

He steers the conversation back to training, and Darim doesn’t have any room to think about anything but what his father is trying to teach him. At least he feels better now, knowing his dad believes he's done his best. And when he finally finishes the lesson and has time to pay attention to other things, Darim realizes that Jeanne has come to visit _him_. She's standing safely out of the way of where Darim is sparring with his father, paying very careful attention.

They smile at each other, and Darim feels better. She's his visitor, his friend. He likes being able to help.


	71. Chapter 71

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter references [Revisiting the Past](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6275818/chapters/14380252).
> 
> (And if you haven't read that, you basically need to know that Haytham/Shay/Aveline have a daughter called Grace)

In the beginning, Aveline finds that raising Geraldine is much the same as raising her first four children had been. Aveline is on familiar ground while Geraldine is an infant. Hundreds of years later, babies still need to be fed and cleaned and loved, just as they always have been. They still cry when they are hungry, or tired, or for no reason at all. They still grow up so quickly that Aveline is constantly afraid that she is going to miss something.

Of course, some of the details are different. Diapers are disposable, which means no more washing them over and over again. Formula is a common substitute for breast milk, which—much to his delight—means Shay can take his turn feeding their daughter. And there are cameras in this century. Aveline knows how quickly children grow up. She fills her phone's memory with pictures of Geraldine in less than six weeks.

But mostly things are the same. When Aveline is up at three in the morning because Geraldine refuses to quiet, when she holds her daughter to her chest and watches her through bleary, sleepy eyes, it is exactly the same. She has done this for all her children, and Geraldine responds in exactly the same way. Aveline knows what she is doing, when Geraldine is small.

Geraldine, of course, does not stay small. It doesn't really hit Aveline that things are going to be different with Geraldine until she asks for a cell phone for her fifth birthday. "What are you going to do with a cell phone?" Aveline asks.

"Call you, maman," Geraldine says. She holds her hand up to her ear like she's holding a phone and grins widely enough that Aveline can see all her perfect, tiny baby teeth. "When you or papa go away, I can call you."

"You can call us on someone else's phone," Aveline says.

"I want a _me_ phone," Geraldine insists.

"You're too little," Aveline tells her, hugging her daughter more tightly. "Maybe in a few years."

"I'm not _little_ ," Geraldine whines. "I'm bigger than Grace!"

"Because she's your younger sister," Aveline says. "But you're still too little for a cell phone."

"Oh," Geraldine says. "Can I have a tablet instead?"

"No."

Geraldine makes a dramatic groaning noise and wiggles out of her mother's arms. She does not walk but  _flounces_ out of the room. It's adorable, and Aveline smiles—but only briefly. When Shay comes in a few minutes later, he notices immediately that something is wrong.

"I wish we'd had Geraldine before we died," Aveline says. "And Grace, too. I wish we could have had them in our right time. They could have grown up with their siblings, we wouldn't have to worry about the things in this time. How much TV should she watch, when is she old enough to use a phone—neither of us knows anything about that, how do we keep her safe?"

"We will figure it out," Shay says.

"Don't tell me you're not worried," Aveline says. "I know you are."

"Of course I am," Shay agrees. "I started losing sleep the night after Philippe was born and I haven't stopped worrying since. But we will figure this out. And it's not just us, you know. Haytham is Grace's father as much as I am. That will help."

"I know," Aveline says.

"And as for having them before we died," Shay goes on. "That wouldn't have been the same. Can you imagine Geraldine as a younger sister?"

"No," Aveline says. "No, she loves being the big sister."

"She'd be a completely different person if she'd been grown up with her siblings. We can do this, you know we can."

"We always have before," Aveline says. She feels better after talking to Shay, she always has. She leans forward to kiss him, but before they can even touch they are interrupted.

"Ew!"

Aveline laughs—she looks up and sees Geraldine standing in the doorway, holding onto Grace's hand. She leans down and puts her other hand over her sister's eyes. "Don't look, Grace, maman and papa are _gross_."

Grace, eighteen months old and still small, makes a confused noise and pulls at Geraldine's hand. But she's still holding onto Geraldine with her other hand, still counting on her big sister go keep her standing. Maybe Shay is right. Putting aside all the struggles and changes of this century, maybe this is exactly where their children are supposed to be.

And then Haytham follows the girls in, and he's another part of their family that hadn't been there in the past. Well—he had been there but not _with_ them. Grace finally gets Geraldine's eyes off her face, and reaches her own up toward Haytham.

"Daddy!" she says. "Daddy, up!"

He picks her up, of course he does, and tucks her securely against his chest. When he carries her over to Shay and Aveline, Geraldine comes skipping behind, still complaining about gross kissing and not being allowed to have a cell phone.

"Not yet," Shay says. "Your maman is right, you're much too young for a phone."

"Me too!" Grace shouts. She's just old enough to want to do everything Geraldine does. "Phone, papa?"

"Not for many, many more years," Haytham tells her, before Shay can say a word. Grace sticks her thumb in her mouth and looks up at him through wide eyes. Aveline is pretty sure that look is going to get Haytham to give Grace a great many things she wants in the future, but right now at least he has the sense to shake his head and give her a kiss on the forehead instead. "No phone," he says again.

" _She's_ still too little," Geraldine says, hands on her hips. "But I'm the _big_ sister."

"Not that big," Aveline says. Geraldine whines and pleads for at least half an hour, and by the end of it even Grace is saying _No, no!_ and shrieking with laughter. Geraldine seems to get the message pretty quickly that no, she's not getting a phone anytime soon, but keeps asking anyway. She plays it up a little, trying to make Grace laugh, enjoying being the center of attention.

And maybe this is another thing that's still the same about raising children, Aveline thinks. Just being with them, spending time with them, seeing them smile. That, at least, will never change.


	72. Chapter 72

Aveline has never felt comfortable keeping the identity of Arno's father from Shay. She has known for a while now that Shay had killed Arno's father. She has known for just as long that she can't tell Shay, that it would hurt him and most likely Arno as well. It is hard to keep secrets from her husband, but that is the nature of their relationship, two people on opposite sides of a conflict that has been going on for centuries and may never stop.

But Shay finds out, eventually. He sees himself kill Arno's father, and comes home to Aveline, upset and hurt. Aveline does what she can, but she is afraid her words do more harm than good. The last person she wants to see in the immediate aftermath of this conversation is Arno, but here she is, in Paris, at Arno's side.

"Hello, Aveline," he says, not looking at her.

"Hello, Arno." She doesn't look back. He's under a bridge, near the water, out of sight of the people passing by on the street above them, looking generally tired and morose. "What are you doing down here?"

He doesn't answer for a moment. Then he says, "Have I ever told you about my father?"

"Yes."

"No, but I mean—I've told you his name, and that he's an assassin. But have I ever told you about him as a  _ father _ ?"

"No," Aveline says. She doesn't want to be rude, but she doesn't want to think about Charles Dorian just now.

Arno apparently does. He keeps pushing the subject. "It's just—it's his birthday today. And I can't stop thinking about him, what he'd think about me if he knew me today. Would he be happy to see I've followed in his footsteps?"

Well—clearly Aveline isn't going to be able to avoid this conversation, much as she wants to. "I don't know," she says. "Probably. One of my sons followed me into the assassins, and I know I am proud of him. But I am proud of my daughter who—" she can't quite meet Arno's eyes. "Who followed Shay into the templars." Best not to think of Shay now, not around Arno. "And I am proud of my other sons, the one that became a merchant and the one that—well, I am not particularly proud of Tomas's decision to become a pirate, I wish he had chosen something less… horribly illegal—"

"Such as the assassins?" Arno says.

"Hush," Aveline says with a smile. "Something with more… principles, I suppose. But the point is, I am proud of him regardless. He is a good man, a good father. And it is a parent's prerogative to be proud of their children, whatever they do with their lives." She puts a hand over her pregnant belly. "I don't even know this child yet, but I know that when he or she is born, I will be proud of them as well."

"But what if my dad didn't want to be proud of me?" Arno says. "I never got to really know him, I never…" he trails off, staring at the water. "Some templar took him away," he finishes at last. "When I was still… I was just a kid. It wasn't fair."

"What was he like, Arno?" Aveline asks.

Arno thinks for a moment. "He traveled a lot.  _ We  _ traveled a lot, really. After my mom left, he took me with him everywhere. I didn't like it then. I didn't like the ships, I didn't like the coaches. I wanted to be at home, not traveling Europe, but he always said his work was important." He chews his lip a moment, thinking. "I remember begging him to let me stay home without him, but he said his work was important but I was  _ more  _ important. After that, he tried to make things better for me. He'd turn it into an adventure, tell me stories. We were always together, except… well, except when he had to work.

"He would get us rooms somewhere, make me promise not to move an inch. Then he'd leave me his watch, he'd tell me when he expected to be back. And I would sit in bed, I'd watch the time, and he was  _ never _ late. Never. He always came back."

Until he didn't. Until Shay killed him.

Aveline doesn't say that. She shakes her head and stands up, offering Arno a hand. He doesn't take it, just kind of watches her glumly. "Arno," Aveline says. "Your father loved you, he  _ would _ be proud of you. So what are you doing here, moping around?"

Arno gestures to the damp ground, the muddy water. "Fits my mood."

"Oh, for God's sake, Arno." She grabs his hand and pulls him up.

"Aveline…"

"Come on," she insists. "This is not the best way to remember your father. We'll go find a better way."

He sighs but follows after Aveline. "Hey," he says when they're back at street level, and he's drawing suspicious looks from passersby for his damp clothes and apparent conversation with himself. "Hey, Aveline, you're alive aren't you?"

"Why?" she asks, genuinely confused at the question. "Do I look like a dead woman?"

"No!" he says. "No, that's not what I mean. It's just that most times I think of you like you're from the future."

"Do you?"

"Well you dress like you're from the future," Arno says. "You're in the future whenever I visit you. But you were actually alive during this time, weren't you? And you're an assassin, like my father was. Did you ever know him?"

Aveline steers the conversation away from dangerous waters before he can realize that if she had been alive at the time of his father's death, Shay would have been as well. She really,  _ really  _ dislikes keeping these secrets.


	73. Chapter 73

Darim arrives at Marcello's side and is struck at once by how quiet he is. With Marcello, _quiet_ rarely goes beyond either 'his mouth happens to be closed at this particular moment in time' or 'sleeping.' But now he is both awake and absolutely _silent_ , and Darim notices this before he takes in anything else. It is only after the initial surprise that Darim sees Marcello is dressed in clean, new clothes. They look stiff and uncomfortable, and they're darker, more sober, than what Marcello normally wears. And then Darim sees that Marcello is holding tight to his sister's hand, and that the two of them are in a small crowd of people in similarly dark clothes, that they are in a graveyard. And Darim knows that somebody has died.

Darim doesn't ask who it is. No one in the graveyard is saying anything, so it's not like Marcello could talk to him right now. Well, there is one person still talking, a priest. He's speaking in a high, formal tone, not ordinary, day to day language. Darim thinks he might be speaking Latin, but Marcello is too smart for his own good, he knows so many languages, Latin included. While Darim is visiting Marcello, he understands everything Marcello does, so the priest could have been speaking any one of half a dozen languages, as far as Darim knows.

He takes up a position next to Marcello, trying to be supportive without actually knowing who has died. This Marcello is older than Darim by maybe a decade. He's a young man instead of the teenager Darim is more familiar with. He doesn't know what's going on with his friend just now, who he's lost. It could be a friend. It could be a neighbor. It's not his father, Darim knows Ezio had died when Marcello was just a child.

But it suddenly occurs to Darim that Marcello's mother is nowhere to be seen.

Marcello looks sideways at Darim, a pleading look, and Darim says, "Do you want to get out of here?"

Marcello nods, just a fraction. Not enough to get anyone's attention but enough for Darim to know. He slips sideways, into Marcello, taking the burden of his body so Marcello can be invisible for just a little while. Darim winces and sucks in a breath—Flavia is squeezing her brother's hand so tightly there's no feeling left.

But then Marcello is screaming. Not in pain, just to scream. A loud, long shout that's almost a sob. He presses his hands against his face, shaking, and for a long time he just stays where he is. Darim wants to comfort him, he wants to say or do something, but right now all he can do is keep Marcello's body standing, so he can scream his grief to the sky without any other witnesses.

"It's my mother," Marcello says at last, voice choked. "She was fine, and then she was sick and—and now she's gone."

He turns around, searching Darim's face for… something. After a moment he shakes his head and sits down (or falls) next to Darim, leaning against his legs. "I'm sorry you had to be here," he says. "You're just a kid, Darim."

Darim would have felt irritated by this, if Marcello hadn't sounded so absolutely heartbroken. It's hard to be mad at him right now.

"You haven't been hurt like this before, have you?" Marcello asks. "You haven't lost anyone."

Darim shakes his head a fraction. His parents are still both alive and well. The closest thing to a loss he has ever felt would be—well, that'd probably be when Rory broke up with him, and that's not at all the same thing. It hurts. It had only been a week ago, so it's still recent. But Marcello has lost his mother. It's not the same.

Marcello is curled up into himself, a miserable lump against Darim's leg. He's not even trying not to cry, he's not trying to be quiet. The tears flow easily. Darim wonders how long Marcello's mother has been dead, or if he's let himself cry since then.

He nudges at Marcello with his leg, and when Marcello looks up at him, Darim opens his hand a little, offering it to Marcello. His visitor takes it at once, clinging to Darim even more tightly than Flavia is holding Darim's other hand. And maybe Darim is imagining it, but Marcello's crying is a little quieter now, he's shaking a little less. Maybe, hopefully, Darim is doing some good.


	74. Chapter 74

Edward is drunk when Adewale comes to visit him, and Adewale is surprised at how easily he can remember the signs, how easily he can just glance at Edward and assess how inebriated he actually is. It's something he'd had to do all the time when he sailed with Edward on the _Jackdaw_ , but that was many years ago. Interesting, that the skill has stayed with him even after all these years.

In any case, Edward is red cheeked and loud today, but no worse. Not likely to run off and do something stupid, or at least no more stupid than normal for him. And Altair is with him, which means at least he has someone to keep an eye on him. Edward needs that, sometimes.

"Ade!" Edward shouts, beaming at him as Altair slides into a chair at the kitchen table next to Altair, across from Edward. "You came!"

"Not by choice," Adewale points out.

"But you came!" Edward insists. "So tell me, are we real today?"

He laughs uproariously, and Adewale rolls his eyes. Next to him, Altair is doing the same thing. "How did you get stuck here?" Adewale asks, turning to Altair. "I'm visiting, I can't exactly go anywhere, but you don't have to babysit."

"Everyone else is busy," Altair says. "Haytham, Shay, and Aveline took their daughters to the park. Elena wanted to go so Desmond went with her. Ezio tagged along because he is essentially a large child himself. Connor is away on a mission, doing actual work, and so I am the only one left to supervise Edward."

"Does he do this often?" Adewale asks.

"Not so often as he did when he was a pirate, from what I've seen," Altair says. "But according to Haytham, more than when he was a child."

"Ah," Adewale says.

"I… worry," Altair says. "I wish he would not do it at all."

"Hey!" Edward whines, sprawling across the table. "Stop talking about me like I'm not here, I _am_ here!"

"Edward," Altair starts. "You—"

"Pay attention to _meeeeeee_ …"

He drags the word out until he runs out of air and trails off pathetically. Altair starts to say something but Adewale shakes his head and holds out a finger. Wait for it.

Edward takes a deep breath and continues: " _eeeeeeeeeeee."_

"Now he's done," Adewale says.

"You're just jealous," Edward says, pointing a wavering finger at Altair. "Because the only time you ever get drunk is when you borrow my body, you don't have fun like that on your own."

"I'm sorry," Adewale says. "When he does what?"

Altair sighs. "You know how visitors can borrow the body of the person they're visiting?"

Adewale nods. He is not fond of that particular aspect of visiting.

"For whatever reason," Altair says. "Edward often finds it amusing to force people into his body while they are visiting him. Particularly when he is drunk."

"And then the person in his body… what, catches his drunkenness?" Adewale asks.

"Yes," Altair says.

Edward snorts. "It's funny," he says. "Hey, Altair—d'you remember that time you kissed Mary?"

Altair looks suddenly nervous. "No," he says, in what Adewale thinks is a not entirely believable tone. "I cannot say I remember—"

"Oh good!" Edward says. Loudly. "I'll remind you. You kissed Mary, and then you kissed Ezio, and then you kissed Mary _again_ , and then you hugged Shay and told him he had pretty hair—" He stops, jaw dropping open in shock. "You know what?"

"What?" Altair asks, with the general air of a particularly squeamish person poking at a squashed bug to see if it's still alive.

"He _does_ have pretty hair," Edward says, as if he's just discovered one of the secrets of the universe.

Altair looks at Adewale. "I really, really wish he would not drink too much."

"We could do that again," Edward says, grinning at Altair. "You should drink _more_."

"You and I no longer visit one another," Altair reminds him. "We live together."

"Oh," Edward says, shoulders slumping. Then his eyes catch on Adewale, and he perks up again. "But _you're_ visiting, Ade! Now it's your turn!"

"Wait," Adewale protests. "Edward—"

Too late. Suddenly he's in Edward's body, and yes, he is definitely drunk. Adewale shakes his head sharply to clear it and looks at the other two. Altair and Edward are both looking at him, Altair with sympathy, Edward—well, Edward is giggling.

Adewale raises his eyebrows. "Edward," he says. "Your drinking is becoming a problem and you should think about getting some help."

"You are not drunk," Altair says, clearly surprised.

"I am," Adewale assures him. "But I sailed with Edward for years, remember. I have a high tolerance for alcohol, and I know how to handle myself when I do drink too much."

"You're no fun," Edward complains, sliding down in his seat and pouting.

"But I am in a much better position to judge how much alcohol you've had," Adewale says, and he immediately launches into a lecture that makes Edward look even _less_ happy. Altair chimes in from time to time, adding in several ways that alcohol has been proven deadly since Adewale's time.

Edward continues to pout.


	75. Chapter 75

It's Desmond's birthday, which is… well, the day had started with Edward enthusiastically shaking him awake, and then kissing him (Elena had thought that was  _ hilarious _ ). And it had pretty much been all downhill since then. But at least there had been cake, and Haytham had given him a typically Haythamesque awkward-but-heartfelt speech about how happy he is to be there and to be able to spend Desmond's birthdays with him. And Elena gives him a picture she drew herself, which Desmond puts in a stack of things he plans to keep for the rest of his life, if possible. She hasn't been with them long enough for the novelty of being loved by her to have time to wear off.

He hopes it never will.

But then when she's handed him his picture she looks up at him and says, "When's  _ my  _ birthday, daddy?" and Desmond doesn't have an answer for that. He hadn’t been there for her birth (and he will regret that for the rest of his life), he can't give her more than a rough guess based on when he and Lucy had been together.

"June," he says. He'd been with Lucy in September.

"June what?" she asks. Haytham's been teaching her about how months work.

"I… don't know," he admits.

Elena gives him an absolutely crushed look. "Why don't you know my birthday?" she says. "I want a birthday too, why can't I have a birthday?"

"You can still have a birthday," Desmond says quickly.

"But you don't know what it is!"

"Listen, Elena—" It's not Desmond that speaks, it's Ezio. Desmond hadn't even heard him come into the room but here he is, giving her his nicest smile. Desmond keeps forgetting that Ezio had actually been a father. All that had happened after Desmond's time in the animus ended, for obvious reasons. "Remember how you were with Abstergo before your dad rescued you?"

"Um…  _ yea _ ," Elena says, in a voice like that should have been obvious. Which probably it should have been—it's not the kind of thing a little girl is going to forget.

"Well, they are very bad people," Ezio says.

"I know."

"They took things away from you that they shouldn't have been able to take," Ezio says. "Like your birthday."

She frowns. "I  _ want  _ a birthday."

"And you'll have one," Ezio says. "You know what? My birthday's in June, too. And if you want, I would love to share it with you."

"Yea?" Elena says. "Is there enough birthday to share?"

"Absolutely," Ezio promises.

Elena looks up at Desmond. "Is it okay if I share?" she says.

He nods and bends down to hug her, tight, and mouths  _ thank you  _ over her shoulder at Ezio. When she has run off to tell her grandpa and probably everyone else in the house about her new birthday, Desmond stands and says "Thank you" to Ezio again.

"Yea," Ezio says. "Well I mean, she's a really good kid. We all care about her, a lot. You know that, right?"

"Yea," Desmond says. "I do. I…" he grins at Ezio. "I'm lucky to have you all."

Ezio makes a big show of sighing and shaking his head. "See?" he says. "This is what we kept trying to tell you while you were in the animus."

"Alright," Desmond says. "I get it—"

"But would you listen?" Ezio goes on.

" _ Ezio _ —"

"No," Ezio says. "No, you would not."

Desmond rolls his eyes in fond annoyance, and leaves Ezio to his cheerful gloating. Suddenly, he has this overwhelming need to go be with his daughter again.


	76. Chapter 76

The house is dark, but Matthew doesn't need to be able to see it to know that this is the worst storm he has ever seen in his whole life. And he's just turned four, so that's a pretty long time.

Lightning flashes outside, bright enough to illuminate the whole room as if it had been the middle of the day instead of very, very late at night. After a moment, thunder booms outside, a long, drawn out sound like a drum being played. It shakes the walls of the house and Matthew puts his hands over his ears and squeezes his eyes shut, trying to block out the bad weather, trying to _pretend_ the storm away.

It doesn't work, and Matthew is scared. He huddles under his blanket in the middle of his bed, in the middle of the room, as far from the shaking walls as he can get. He knows in his head that it's going to be okay. His parents wouldn't leave him alone here if it was really, really dangerous. But the thunder echoes in his chest, inside of him, and Matthew's not doing a very good job of listening to his head right now.

Someone touches his shoulder and Matthew jumps half out of his skin. When he cautiously opens his eyes and pulls his hands away from his ears, there's another boy sitting next to him on the bed. He's dressed funny, and he smells like sun and spices Matthew can't name. But he looks nice, he looks like… a friend.

And it's funny, because Matthew has never really felt alone before but something about being with this other boy makes Matthew feel like he's just found something that's been missing his whole life.

"Do you know where we are?" the other boy asks. His voice is quiet under the rolling thunder, but not scared. He doesn't look like the kind of person that really _gets_ scared.

"My room," Matthew says.

"Oh." The other boy cocks his head a little. "Where's that?"

"Um—" Matthew hasn't ever thought about where home is. It's just _home_ , it's the most important place in the world. He's always thought everyone knows where it is. "Here?" he says at last. Thunder crashes again and Matthew jumps a little. Then he flushes bright red and tries to pretend he's not scared.

The other boy stands up and pads to the window. He watches the storm through solemn eyes for a few minutes, then turns to tell Matthew, "It's just rain."

"Yea," Matthew says. "Yea, I know, but…"

He doesn't finish his sentence, he can't find the right words to say. But the other boy doesn't seem to need Matthew to say anything at all. He just nods like he gets it and climbs back onto Matthew's bed next to him, where he surprises Matthew by pulling him into a tight hug. "It's okay," he says. "I'm not scared. We can be friends and you can borrow some of my not-scared."

"Does that work?" Matthew asks.

"Sure," says his new friend. "I'm a big brother. I let my little brother borrow my not-scared all the time."

Another flash of lightning—Matthew shakes and tries to hide it by hugging his friend back. "I'm going to be a big brother soon," he says. "Momma says she's going to have a baby."

"See?" his friend says. "Then you won't have to be scared anymore."

They stay where they are until the storm peters out. Matthew's new friend is very good at hugging, and Matthew feels better than he had before. When the storm dies down to nothing, Matthew's friend tells him his name is Darim. Matthew says _it's nice to meet you_ and shakes his hand like his momma taught him. Darim grins wide enough for Matthew to see he's missing one of his top teeth. The left one. Matthew's is wiggly but it hasn't come out yet, and he tries to poke it with his tongue without letting Darim see.

"You don't think my name is funny?" he asks.

 "No," Matthew says. "You should hear my daddy's."

"Jenny says my name is funny," Darim says. "She _laughed_."

"Who?" Matthew asks.

"You haven't met her yet?" Darim asks.

Matthew shakes his head no. "Does she live by you?" he asks.

"No," Darim says vaguely. "She lives far away somewhere. But she's my friend and she's gonna be your friend too."

"How do you know?" Matthew asks.

Darim looks as surprised as Matthew had felt when Darim asked where home is. "I just know," he says. "I dunno why."

"Okay," Matthew says. He looks at Darim shyly and says, "I would like to have more friends."

"She's nice," Darim says. "Except when she laughs at my name." He curls up on Matthew's pillow and yawns, then looks sideways at Matthew. "I'm not tired," he says.

"Me neither," Matthew says. But then he realizes he's kind of leaning sideways on his pillow, propped up on one elbow, and he thinks that's funny, when did he start lying down? And that's the last thought he remembers having before waking up the next morning, alone in his bed.

And that might have been a sad ending to the story, except Matthew sees Darim lots after that. And he meets his friend Jenny, too, and then other friends. Elena and Rory and Jeanne and Marcello and Jacob. And every time Matthew meets another one he feels the same way he had when he first saw Darim. Like some part of him he didn't know was missing is suddenly standing right there in front of him. And when he's met all seven of the people that call themselves his visitors, then and only then does Matthew feel all the way, definitely for sure, no doubt about it _real_.

And he's never afraid of a thunderstorm again.


	77. Chapter 77

Jenny isn't sure at first who she's here to visit. She's outside somewhere, and there are trees around. Trees, but no visitors. It takes Jenny a second to think of looking up, longer than it should have. She's twelve years old, she knows her visitors well, and whoever she's here for is probably climbing  _ something _ .

It still takes a moment to see anyone, but finally she spies a small, dirty girl hanging morosely onto a branch. Jenny thinks of calling out to her, but the girl is so tiny that she's barely got a grip on her tree. Jenny is half afraid she'll startle the girl into falling if she says anything. She climbs the tree herself, instead. It's a slow and rather difficult process in her skirt, but Jenny used to be good at this. Her father had taught her once, just after they'd first met.

Eventually, she manages to reach the branch where the little girl is, and she eases herself into a sitting position next to her. The girl, who looks maybe four years old, glances at Jenny but doesn't say anything. Jenny doesn't say anything either. She's not entirely sure who this is—she's too pale to be Jeanne, and judging by the way the land around them looks, it's too early for this to be Elena's time. But that just leaves Jacob, and…

And…

Jenny has never seen her sister like this, with long hair tied back in a pair of tight braids, skirt hiked up over skinny, little girl knees. "Jacob?" she asks.

"What?"

Maybe it's not Jacob? But her face looks more familiar the longer Jenny looks, and she's pretty sure… she asks anyway. "What's your name?"

"Hannah."

"Hannah?" There aren't any visitors called Hannah. Except… well, she's always known Jacob can't be the name her sister was born with. Maybe she'd started out as Hannah?

She nods, then shrugs. She looks miserable, and Jenny puts an arm around her shoulders. "What's the matter?"

"Get off me," Hannah complains, pushing away from Jenny's arm. "I'm okay."

"Why are you hiding in a tree, then?"

Hannah scoffs, and Jenny one hundred percent recognizes her sister in the sound. Alright. This is Jacob before she knows she's Jacob. Jenny can live with that.

"I'm not  _ hiding _ ," Hannah explains. "I'm just—oh!" She goes quiet and shrinks in toward Jenny. This time she doesn't complain when Jenny hugs her. A trio of boys, a few years older than Hannah, run past the tree, clearly looking for someone.

"Hey, stupid!" the biggest one calls in a singsong voice. "Stupid, where are you?" The other two boys laugh, and then they pass the tree and their voices fade into the distance.

"I don't  _ like _ when they call me stupid," Hannah whispers to Jenny.

"Well, no," Jenny says. "I don't like it either. Why do they do that?"

Hannah hesitates. "Dunno," she mutters unconvincingly.

"Hannah," Jenny says softly. "Listen. You don't know me yet, but… well, have you ever heard of visitors?"

"No."

"There's eight of us," Jenny says. "And we live all over the world, in different times. But sometimes we just show up in each other's lives. And no one else can see us."

"Sounds dumb," Hannah complains. But she isn't even trying to get away from Jenny anymore.

"It's not dumb," Jenny says.

"So… does this mean we have to be friends?"

"We don't have to be if you don't want to," Jenny says. She feels comfortable saying it because she knows they will be, eventually. "But do you want to know something?"

Hannah shrugs.

"We're sisters."

"Really sisters?"

"Half-sisters," Jenny allows. "We have the same father."

"I don't have a father," Hannah reports. "Or a mother. I just have Anne. And she's nice, but she's…"

Jenny finishes the thought, because after all there had been a time after her mother but before her father when she'd thought she was alone. "She's not a parent."

"I still like her though," Hannah says, just a shade defensively. "She doesn't let the neighbor boys tease me, so now they only do it when she's not around. Which is better than before." She kicks at the tree. "A little. I guess."

"Why do they tease you?" Jenny asks.

Hannah shrugs. "Cuz they're boys and I'm a girl and that's what boys do."

"I bet you could kick all their arses," Jenny says, and Hannah's eyes fly wide open like she's been slapped.

" _ No, _ " she says, but she sounds delighted that Jenny would suggest she could.

"Bet you could," Jenny says, poking at Hannah's skirt. "Might want to trade that in for trousers, though. Just a thought."

"Anne says my mom used to do that," Hannah tells her. She drops her voice and leans over precariously on the tree branch to whisper in Jenny's ear. "She pretended to be a boy and sailed on ships and—and she wasn't scared of  _ nothin' _ and d'you think I could be like her?"

"I think you could be better," Jenny says.

Hannah smiles so wide that Jenny can see the space where one of her baby teeth has been knocked out. "Okay," she says. "Now tell me about visitors."

And they sit there for a while in the tree, while Jenny tells Hannah all about their visitors. Her sister's eyes are bright with excitement when Jenny's visit finally ends, and she's sent home to their father. 


	78. Chapter 78

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So way back in November, before any of us knew Adewale was going to be a visitor, Riona wrote Haytham and Shay [almost killing him.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4608768/chapters/11914346) Now that we know Adewale is a visitor, it's worth revisiting what that scene looked like from the other side. :)

It is strange, having spent so many years doubting that visitors are anything more than a hallucination, to now believe in them. Stranger still to have two of them trying to kill him. True, Haytham and Shay are templars. Shay, a templar—it's nearly unbelievable. He'd been such a promising young assassin, and Adewale cannot imagine the kind of pain he must have gone through to cause him to switch sides. It's killing Adewale to see him now, cold and distant and dressed in a templar's heavy robes.

Killing him. Of course, Shay probably would have enjoyed knowing that, given how hard he's currently working to murder Adewale. And just last week, Adewale had visited a different Shay, watched him struggle his way through a toy store the weekend before Christmas to buy presents for his daughters. That had been a friendly visit, this is… well, it's neither friendly nor a visit.

"I wish you would take this a little more seriously," Adewale mutters to Edward. The other assassin is visiting, and seems almost annoyingly casual about Adewale's impending death. Because Adewale is going to die here, he's certain of that. Shay is younger, he is determined—Adewale is already injured and he is certain that he will not be walking away from this.

"It's fine," Edward says, waving a dismissive hand in Shay's general direction. "I've seen this already."

"Have you?" Adewale asks, giving Edward a sharp look. "Visiting Shay?"

"Haytham, actually," Edward says. "It was a little crowded. I was visiting Haytham, Connor was visiting… someone, I don't know. And now you're here, and I'm visiting you, so really it's like there's six of us here."

Adewale can't help thinking there might be more soon. He's been told that visitors all tend to gather together when one of them dies, and after all he is about to do exactly that.

"Quit frowning," Edward says, poking at him. Adewale slaps his hand away. "Come on! You're being boring. It's bad enough at home, Altair's mad at me so he's making me do surveillance. I mean, what's the point of that? We all know I'm not going to pay attention to get anything useful information anyway, so really it's just a punishment and that's it—"

It's while Adewale is distracted by Edward's rambling that Shay leaps on him from above. They go crashing to the ground and Adewale—no matter how hard he struggles—cannot worm his way free. Shay has him pinned between his knees, and although some of the careful control of his expression has started to slip, his blade is steady.

"Oh look," Edward says brightly. "I remember this. This is when I showed up."

Nearly all of Adewale's mind is caught up with the inevitability of his own death, but there's enough space left to be hurt that Edward just… doesn't care. They're friends. He's about to die.

And then, abruptly, Adewale is thrown out of his own body. For a moment he thinks it's Edward, irrationally borrowing Adewale in his final moments. But no, when Adewale looks around, Edward is still there, looking just as confused as Adewale. "Who's that?" Adewale asks, pointing to himself.

"I don't know," Edward says. "I wasn't paying attention."

Adewale very nearly rolls his eyes. Edward.

-//-

On the ground in front of the two assassins, Haytham looks up through Adewale's eyes at Shay. He knows Adewale is not about to die here. He'd made the decision to spare the man himself. But judging by the conversation between his father and Adewale that Haytham had dropped in on, no one has told Adewale that.

Shay would never have been here if not for Haytham. He is the grand master in this time. This almost-death is his responsibility. And now that Adewale is a visitor, that just seems… wrong. So Haytham has chosen to take that pain from him.

He had not expected to be hurt himself, but looking up at Shay, from this position, pinned between the other templar's knees, is hard. All Haytham can think of the last time they'd done this—the circumstances had been vastly different. They'd both been naked, and Aveline had been involved.

Now Shay is very clearly working his way up to killing him. The intent is there, in his eyes, and Haytham suddenly aches to hold him. He's almost forgotten how much pain Shay went through in this time, killing the men he had once called brother. This is no easier for him than it is for Haytham or Adewale.

"Sir?" Shay says, and it takes Haytham a moment to remember that Shay is talking to his past self. "Any chance of a change of orders?" He doesn't take his eyes off Haytham, but Haytham can't keep his gaze from flicking sideways to look at his older self. He's doing a much better job at keeping the hesitation of his face than Shay is, but Haytham knows exactly what his younger self is thinking anyway. He remembers everything about this encounter, in near perfect detail.

“It’s Adéwalé, man, can’t you see?” the earlier Edward asks. The one that's here visiting the younger Haytham. Of course, the present Haytham can't see him, but he knows his father is there, in pain, terrified for his friend, trying to possess either Shay or Haytham and failing on both counts.

But he'd managed to knock Shay off Adewale, Haytham remembers, and… yes. Shay abruptly throws himself away, and Haytham's instincts kick in and he rolls away, onto his feet. He doesn't want to hurt Shay, he would never want that, but his blade comes out anyway, adrenaline coursing through him.

"Shay!" the younger Haytham calls, and he throws himself onto his older self. For a moment, Haytham is struck by the absolute strangeness of this moment, of looking into his own eyes and seeing a certainty there that he needs to die.

"Hat man, don't kill him!" the younger Edward cries in Haytham's memory. " “Whatever your quarrel is, he’s a friend of mine.”

A friend of Haytham's, too, although this Haytham doesn’t know it yet.

Haytham remembers then that he has lines—Adewale had spoken to him when Haytham lived through this moment the first time around. Luckily, these are burned into Haytham's memories as clearly as Edward's distressed cries, or Connor's angry, silent disapproval. "What is this?" he hisses now, trying to replicate Adewale's voice exactly the way he remembers it. " Playing with me before you strike? Kill me, if that’s what you’re here for!”

Behind himself, Haytham can see Shay holding his hands up, trying to calm an invisible but hugely pissed off Edward. "Edward," he says. "Please don't make me choose between you and him."

Well, that's one question answered at least, Haytham thinks as past-Edward snaps, "You’re helping him murder my friend. Looks to me like you’ve already chosen.” He'd wondered why Adewale hadn't shown any surprise at all at hearing Edward's name.

The other Haytham's blade is drawing blood where it rests against Adewale's neck—it hurts, worse than Haytham had expected, and time seems to slow to a crawl. In this moment, irrationally, he doubts himself. He remembers deciding not to kill Adewale, he remembers choosing to honor his father's friendship to the man. But there is no mercy in the harsh face looking down at him now, and Haytham thinks what if it's changed somehow? What if—

Haytham, the other Haytham, retracts his hidden blade. He keeps his older self pinned firmly down, and begins to work Adewale's blades off.

"Hey, whoever you are." The older Edward, the one visiting Adewale, prods at Haytham with his foot. "I assume you were here last time, since you're getting everything right. You're supposed to say something now, remember?"

Right. Of course. "You came here to disarm me?" Haytham asks, and he's proud of the disbelief he manages to force into his voice. Hard to fake surprise at a scene he still remembers so clearly.

"That wasn't the intention, no," the other Haytham says, passing the blades back to Shay. " “But our mutual friend would be very unhappy if I killed you, and I don’t favor our chances of retreat if I leave you with so much as a letter opener.”

Haytham very nearly smiles at 'mutual friend,' because 'our father' would have been more accurate. But then he remembers the next thing he has to say, and suddenly he doesn't want to smile at all. These words still hurt when he thinks back on them. But he laughs, because he remembers Adewale laughing—but he can't force any sincerity into it. "Don't try to pretend you loved him," he says.

And it is only because Haytham knows himself so well that he sees the pain in his own eyes. When he answers, his voice is hard and brittle. Cold. “Believe what you will. But there must be some reason you’re living to see another sunrise. Shay? Surely you can spare a few belts; you wear more than enough of the things.”

Haytham stays still until his other self and Shay have finished tying him up. It is very difficult, on a number of levels, to keep himself from moving. But he manages it, and only when the two of them have left with their visitors that Haytham allows Adewale to take his body back.

Adewale curses loudly in surprise, and Edward hugs Haytham tight as soon as he sees him. "Haytham!" he says.

Haytham hugs him back, rather more closely than he would have in other circumstances. Then he lets go and bends down to untie Adewale. He himself is less than skilled at knots, but Shay is a sailor and very good with a rope. Or a belt, as the case may be. There's no way Adewale will be wriggling out of it on his own. Edward—as good with knots as Shay, especially when he's sober—crouches next to him to help.

"You nearly killed me," Adewale tells Haytham, but there is more relief than anger in his voice.

"Nearly," Haytham agrees.

For a moment, Adewale is silent. Then he says, "You didn't have to spare me. And you certainly did not have to live this moment for me."

"Would you rather have gone through it yourself?" Haytham asks.

"No—"

"You are a visitor," Haytham says. "I didn't know it then, of course, but I know it now. And whatever our opinion of one another, visitors do not hurt each other." Not on purpose, at least. Well, unless it's emotional hurt. Or a young Altair. Or Connor, killing his father. Or—well, come to think of it, they do hurt one another rather a lot. But Haytham had been killed by a visitor, he refuses to be on the other side of that, even if it hadn't worked out.

Edward helps Adewale to his feet, and Adewale rubs uncomfortably at the rising welts on his wrists. "Thank you," he says.

Haytham inclines his head. "Don't mention it," he says.

"But I do appreciate it," Adewale insists. "I—"

"No, Adewale," Haytham says. "Please, do not mention this. Particularly to Shay or Aveline. They would be very unhappy to hear that I just put myself in danger of being killed by myself." And then they would be concerned, and the last thing Haytham wants to do is concern them.

Edward laughs and slings an arm around Haytham's shoulder. "Did I tell you my son is getting some from both of them at once?" he asks Adewale. "I'm very proud of him."

"Father," Haytham groans. "Please, stop." He pauses. "And getting some? Really—"

But then Adewale laughs, not exactly with Haytham but certainly not at him. And Haytham smiles, and Edward of course is practically jumping in excitement. None of them is dead and after decades of trying, Haytham can finally lay aside the guilt of what he and Shay had almost done on this day. He's done everything he can to spare Adewale the pain of his almost death, and Adewale seems to have forgiven him.

Not bad, for an afternoon's work.


	79. Chapter 79

They don't get mail sent right to the safe house, of course. Even with false names it's just too much of a risk to take. Instead, they typically rent out a PO box a few miles away from wherever they happen to be staying, and anything they really need to know gets sent there. Connor usually goes out there once a week or so, because he enjoys the drive and the relative peace and quiet that comes with such a mundane task.

So he's surprised, on this particular day, when he arrives at the post office and finds Shay there. He's got his own key to the box, of course. They all do, just in case, but everybody else hates this job so it's only ever Connor that actually goes. He gives Shay a confused look, and Shay gives him an extremely strained smile in response.

"What's that?" Connor asks.

"What's what?"

"That." Connor points to the envelope Shay is holding, and now trying to quickly hide behind one leg. "What is it?"

Shay makes a face and his shoulders slump. "Grace's paternity test," he says, bringing the envelope up so Connor can see it. "Today's the day we find out if I'm her father, or if Haytham is."

Connor struggles with this for a moment. He does not dislike Grace. She is a newborn and has no control over her parentage. But he is so, _so_ unhappy with the idea of his father in love with—in a relationship with—two of Connor's closest friends. Connor's relationship with his father has always been tumultuous, at best. But he takes comfort in their shared love of Connor's mother, and the untouchability of that.

Except that apparently, for Haytham, it had not been untouchable after all.

He wants to end the conversation there, but finds that he can't. Shay looks legitimately unhappy, which is not what Connor expects. "You do not want to know?" he asks.

"I want to be her father," Shay says, like he's admitting something shameful.

"The way I understood it," he says cautiously. "You and my father had agreed that you would both be father to her."

"But—biologically," Shay says. He gestures at the door, and Connor takes pity on him—the two of them leave to have more privacy. When they are outside, without the post office's bored clerk desperately eavesdropping for something interesting, Shay goes on. "Can you imagine… well, I won't ask you to imagine you're in a situation like I am with Aveline and Haytham."

"I would never do that," Connor agrees. He'd been uncomfortable enough with just Emily. Adding another man to that relationship would have made everything worse.

"Alright," Shay says. "So… so imagine this instead. Matthew's just been born. You're holding him, and he's just—he's perfect. He's everything you thought your son would be."

A faint smile tugs at Connor's lips. He does not have to imagine when remembering works perfectly well.

Shay goes on. "Now imagine Emily starts crying. She admits that she's had an affair with another man. Matthew is his son, not yours. Can you picture that?"

"Yes," Connor says, slow and reluctant.

 "So in that scenario," Shay says. "Do you still love Matthew?"

 "Of course," Connor says.

"Do you still call him your son?"

"Yes."

"But do you wish he was _yours_?"

Connor thinks this over for a minute. "Ah," he says at last. "I understand."

"I know this isn't something you want to hear," Shay says. "But I do care about Haytham. Aveline does as well. And the thought of raising a child with both of them is—I'm excited. I am honestly excited to see what the three of us can do for this child, together. But I very much want Grace to be my daughter. I will love her either way, but there's something about holding a child— _knowing_ there's a part of you in them… it's special.

Connor hesitates. But he is increasingly uncomfortable with this conversation the longer it goes on, and so he says, "Perhaps if you were so concerned about Grace's parentage, you should not have—with my father."

Shay sighs. "Never mind, Connor," he says. "Just—never mind. I didn't expect you to understand, but I thought you could at least support me. We're friends."

That they are. Connor stops on the sidewalk and grabs Shay's upper arm to stop him as well. "I'm sorry," he says. "I don't know how I can help, but I will try to be a better listener."

Shay flashes him a feeble smile. "Thanks," he says. "And if you're serious, there is a way you could help." He holds up the envelope and Connor takes it, confused. "Will you look at this for me? I'd rather hear the results from you than read them myself."

Connor takes the envelope and slits it open. There's only one sheet of paper inside, but Connor takes his time to read through the information and fully process it before saying anything to Shay.

"There's no names on here," he says at last. "Are you sample A or sample B?"

"B," Shay says.

Connor takes a deep breath. "I'm sorry," he says, handing the envelope back.

Shay nods, and doesn't stop—he just keeps nodding like he's trying to convince himself that yes, this is okay. It's obviously not working, so Connor tries to help. "There's a part of you in her, you know."

"What?"

"You said that you wanted to hold Grace, and know that there was some part of you inside her," Connor says. "Even if she is not your biological daughter, I know there is part of you in her."

"Yea?" Shay says. He stops nodding, and looks over at Connor. He's hopeful. "Which part?"

Connor shrugs. "I don't know yet," he says. "But… look at Desmond."

"I'm sorry, what?" Shay says. The hope on his face shifts quickly into confusion. "What does Desmond have to do with Grace?"

"He doesn't look much like our father," Connor says. "They're not genetically father and son. They are _related_ , of course, but there are a lot of generations between the two of them. But there are times when I look at Desmond and I see our father in him. He learned to be a father to Elena from the way our father treats him. There are little things he's picked up as well, ways of standing, habits, the odd turn of phrase—there is a lot of our father in him. More than there is in me, I think, and I am far more directly related to him. But he was there for Desmond."

"Thank you," Shay says. He looks calmer. "I know, it's—a foolish thing to worry about. But I was worried anyway."

"She is your daughter," Connor says. "You have every right to worry about her."

They start walking again, and after a block or so, Shay says, "You're worried too, aren't you?"

"No," Connor says. "Of course not."

"You're tense."

 _"Shay_ —"

"You helped me," Shay insists, stubbornly. "Let me at least listen to your problem."

Connor sighs. "Fine. I am… upset that my father has moved past my mother. She deserves better than that."

Shay tilts his head a fraction, clearly considering his response. "He hasn't forgotten your mother, I don't think. And I don't think he's stopped loving her, or ever will."

"He's just in love with another woman," Connor says. "And a man."

"Connor…" Shay shakes his head. "We were just talking a minute ago about how you can see a parent's influence in their child. With you around, there is no way Haytham can ever forget your mother. There is so much of her in you that even I can see her. I know Haytham _must_ think of her every day."

Connor hesitates. He has to admit that he likes the idea of his mother still present inside him somewhere. But he can't quite bring himself to take Shay at his word. "You never knew my mother," he says. "How do you know—"

Shay rolls his eyes. "Come on, Connor," he says. "We're visitors. I've seen her with you and with Haytham. I've never had a conversation with her, but yes. I knew her. And I think I know her better after being friends with you so long."

Connor lets out a shaky breath. He does not say thank you, but he nods. "I parked over there," he says, pointing.

"I'm back that way," Shay says, gesturing in another direction.

"I will see you at home, then."

"I might be late," Shay says. "I need to stop by the store for diapers."

"I will let the others know," Connor says gravely. "And you should pick up some eggs while you're there."

And with that remarkably casual end to what has been an emotionally draining conversation, they go their separate ways.

-//-

Later that evening, Connor watches from the kitchen while his father, Shay, and Aveline sit down with the envelope holding Grace's paternity test. He stays a respectful distance away and tries not to listen, but he knows when Shay tells them because his father breaks down crying and hugs them both. The three of them talk for a long time, and then Connor's father gets up to put Grace to bed for the night. Connor tries not to be obvious about it when he goes to the doorway and looks in, watching them. Not that it would have mattered—his father is so absorbed in Grace that he would not have noticed a herd of elephants charging through the room.

Connor watches as his father puts Grace gently into her crib, the same one Geraldine had used. She is quiet, which means she must be nearly asleep. But their father does not leave. He stays by the crib, looking down at her with a soft expression, gently stroking her tiny head.

After a moment Connor nods, satisfied. Perhaps he can trust his father to know his own feelings. It is not Connor's place to judge. He slips soundlessly away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might not be a huge fan of Shay/Aveline/Haytham, but it's here, and I love getting to write Haytham with Grace. <3 (I am, however, sorry for how rambling this scene turned out)


	80. Chapter 80

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the second chapter I posted tonight, so check the last one if you didn't see it and want to see Connor and Shay angsting together.

Evie is standing there, in her wedding dress, doing her best to convince herself that this is really happening. Again. She's about to marry Henry, they will be _together_ as they haven't been since Evie lost her memories of the first time through the timeline. She can't stop smiling, but she knows she'll cry during the ceremony.

"Geeze, Evie—" she turns around and it's Jacob, looking tired and grimy (filthy, honestly, coated in soot and mud and God knows what else) but absolutely beaming at her. He's far away today, attending to an emergency in Scotland. Apparently, there had been no other assassins close enough or well-trained enough to deal with what's going on there. It had to be either Jacob or Evie or Henry, and Jacob is the only one not actually getting married—she knows this must be the present Jacob visiting, because he doesn't look surprised to see her getting married today. And Evie is so, so happy that he's here. "You're actually wearing the dress?" Jacob goes on. "I thought you'd chicken out at the last minute and wear your robes."

Evie tries her best to glare at him but her eyes start to water against her will. "I can wear a dress when I want to," she says. "And I want to feel like a woman today. Not an assassin."

"Well you look beautiful," he says, and for once there's not a hint of teasing in his tone.

"Thank you," Evie says. "Jacob, I—I wish you were really here." He hugs her then, enthusiastically, and Evie laughs as she squirms away. "You're a mess," she says. "I have to keep this dress nice."

"I _am_ a mess," Jacob agrees. "Do you have any idea what I've had to do since I got here? I can't wait to be home."

"When will that be?" Evie asks.

Jacob sighs. "Maybe a week? There's only the one templar up here, but he's a slippery bugger. I'm having trouble getting at him."

"You'll manage," Evie says. "You're a good assassin, Jacob."

"Hey," he says. "I'm a _great_ assassin."

"Of course you are," she says, and she's surprised that she _means_ it. When they first came to London, she wouldn't have been able to say those words with a straight face, but their time here has changed both of them. She knows now, as she has never known before, that Jacob is more than a hassle, more than her annoying brother—he really is a great assassin. She's choked up, her watering eyes are starting to tear up—

"Hey," Jacob says softly. "Hey, hey—don't cry. You'll mess up your face paint."

"It's _makeup_ , Jacob—"

He smiles at her, soft and kind, and brushes away the stray tears trickling out. "Hey," he says. "When's the ceremony start?"

"A couple of minutes," Evie says. "Why?"

"Well, as long as I'm here… and I mean, father's dead, right? Someone has to give you away."

She tilts her head a little. "I'm not someone's possession, Jacob," she says. "I don't belong to you and I won't belong to Henry."

He laughs. "Don't I know it." But behind the laugh, he looks thoroughly disappointed.

Evie takes pity on him. "You can't give me away," she says. "But I suppose, since you're visiting, you'll have to stick close to me anyway. And… I would love to have you walk down the aisle with me today."

"Thank you," Jacob says.

"And at least no one else will be able to see what a mess you are," Evie teases.

He hugs her again, and then—

Well, then he vanishes, visit over. Evie takes a shaky breath, disappointed. She's marrying Henry, not her brother, but she so, _so_ wishes he was here today.

Henry's mother comes in then, and Evie manages to sound cheerful while Pyara hugs her and then tells her to get ready to go. Evie nods, gathers her courage (this should _not_ be so terrifying), and follows her future mother in law out of the dressing room. She turns left, headed for the room where her wedding is going to take place, and then from behind her someone says, "Hey."

She turns—with difficulty, thanks to the dress—and at first she thinks she's being visited again. But no. Jacob is a little too far away to be her visitor. He's just standing there, looking exactly as filthy as he had on his visit. _Exactly_ as dirty. Evie breaks into a grin. " _Jacob_ ," she says, and she's crying, makeup smearing down her face. When Jacob gets close enough she hits him, then hugs him. "Jacob, were you standing out here the whole time you were visiting me?"

"Maybe," he says, but his mischievous grin is clearly saying yes.

"You idiot," Evie says, smacking him again. "You told me you wouldn't be back for a week."

"Surprise!" he laughs. "I might have lied a little, but I wanted to see the look on your face. Come on, Evie. There is nothing on Earth that could keep me away from your wedding--I took that templar out in like one day and came back as quick as I could. Didn't even stop for a bath."

"Clearly," Evie manages to say. She's laughing and crying because he's here, Jacob's here, her brother's going to be here for her on her wedding. "I love you," she says.

"I love you too," Jacob says. Then he grins. "But don't let Henry hear you say that, he might get jealous. You—hey, don't _hit_ me again. I'll bruise."

"It's not like anyone could see it under all that mud—"

"Hey, don't even start. I'll have to tell you how hard I had to try just to get here in time—"

From down the hall, Evie hears the first notes of the wedding music. She takes a breath and wipes the tears from her face. It makes an absolute mess of her face, and she could not care less. When Jacob puts his arm through hers and rubs dirt into the dress she'd spent a full hour squeezing into, all Evie can think is that it's proof he's here.

So Jacob walks with her down the aisle, leaving muddy footprints behind them all the way. Henry stands at the far end, and he looks like he's just _barely_ keeping himself from laughing at Jacob's mud monster look. But to be fair, Jacob keeps half-laughing in Evie's ear, little breathless gasps as he struggles to keep a straight face. For her part, Evie doesn't laugh but she can't keep her mouth from turning up into a broad, foolish smile, again and again and again.

They stop, just next to Henry. Jacob gives Evie one last squeeze on the arm, and starts to walk away. The ceremony starts. Jacob comes running back to Evie, and tangles her up in a bear hug that almost sweeps her off her feet. Evie tries to complain but she doesn't have the heart—she hugs him back with all her might, and then Jacob lets go and nods at Henry.

"You better be good to her," he says. "Or you'll have to deal with me."

Evie nudges his side with her elbow.

"After you deal with _her_ ," Jacob adds, without missing a beat. "Because she's probably more terrifying."

And Evie thinks that she's very lucky to be marrying Henry. Not just for the obvious reasons—because he loves her and she loves him, because he makes her smile and even laugh, because she is convinced that her life with him will be so much better than a life without him would be. No—just now, she's thinking how lucky she is because he understands how insane her brother is, and doesn't mind at all.

"I will do everything I can to make her happy," he promises Jacob. "I can't think of anything I'd rather do with the rest of my life."

Evie knows she will deny it until the day she dies, but inside she swears she's _melting_.

"Good," Jacob says, and with everyone watching he takes his sweet time walking back to his seat.

And _then_ the ceremony begins. And this time, they manage to make it all the way through to the end. Evie and Henry are married.


	81. Chapter 81

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was originally written in four parts but I decided I liked it better as one long chapter. Sorry for all of you that have to read it in one go. xD
> 
> This is set after [Unwanted Visitor](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6406501/chapters/14666389)

(1)

* * *

 

There's no reason for Desmond to keep in touch with Sage after the kidnapping is over and Juno is dead. The kid's a mess. He's obviously just waiting for Juno to come back. It's not the most fun thing in the world, having a conversation with someone that's obviously wishing you would hurry up and get kicked out of your own body already. Sage has this creepy way of looking right through Desmond, like he's looking for Juno somewhere inside him. Sometimes, it's enough to make Desmond wonder if maybe she's not as gone as he'd thought—

No. No, she's dead.

And Sage is still here. He's trying so hard to cope with the feelings Juno had forced on him, and he's just a kid. Desmond can't help feeling for him. Maybe that's why he keeps in contact, even though he knows it's probably a bad idea. They talk on the phone once a week. Tuesday afternoons, 3:15, when Sage comes home from school but before his mom's back from work. And they've met once or twice, in public places like coffee shops and parks.

Sage is clearly struggling to adjust back to his normal life. He tells Desmond his grades are slipping, he's lost touch with most of his friends, he fights with his mom. And Desmond feels bad, because bad things have happened to this kid, and there's no one he can even talk to about it. Apparently, Sage hasn't told anyone what happened during the months when he was with Juno. Not his mom, not the friends he doesn't talk to anymore, not the school counselor he's supposed to be talking to. He just lets them all assume he'd run away, and then come back.

Desmond tries to be that person for Sage, someone he can talk to. He listens. He tries not to miss a phone call, and Sage doesn't either. Well—not until he does.

Desmond normally waits for Sage to call him, but today his phone doesn't ring. It's 3:30, and Sage has never been later than 3:16.  Desmond has the uncomfortable feeling that Sage looks forward to these conversations all week—but at least he's also getting the impression that the more conversations they have, the more Sage is looking forward to talking to  _ him  _ and not hoping for  _ Juno _ . They talk less about precursors and ancient temples, and more about normal stuff, Sage's school and his home life.

At 3:45, Desmond calls Sage. There's no answer, so he calls twice more. Sage never picks up, so Desmond stops trying, but now he's  _ worried _ .

Wednesday morning, Sage finally calls. Desmond smiles without meaning to—good. Sage is okay after all. He must have been busy yesterday, that's okay, it happens. They can talk now instead.

"Hey, Sage," Desmond says when he picks up the phone. "Are you okay? You weren't picking up yester—"

"This is Detective Kirk Best."

Desmond's words stumble and die on his tongue. He doesn't realize, not until the fear crashes over him like a wave, that he cares about what happens to the kid.

"We're investigating the disappearance of Sage Albero," Best continues.

"He's gone?" Desmond asks, and he's thinking  _ fuck _ , they were making progress. What if Sage is gone looking for Juno again?

"Listen," Best says. "We're going to need you to come down and talk to us."

Desmond almost asks why, but—no. He's not an idiot. He's an adult man that has been calling a fifteen year old boy once a week for several months now, ever since Sage ran away the first time. Sage hasn't told anyone else about Desmond. There's no way that doesn't look wildly suspicious to an investigating detective.

Desmond considers his options here. He can just hang up, trash this phone, and possibly move (again) if the police start to show an interest. Or he can go down, try and invent a story that doesn't sound like bad science fiction to explain how he met Sage, and try to get things cleared up. Maybe help track him down. Sage, he—the kid's having trouble. It's not his fault.

"Yea," Desmond says. "I'll come down."

"Great, yea," the detective says, and Desmond doesn't for a single second trust the overwhelming friendliness in the detective's voice. They both know damn well that he's a—what do they call it on TV? Person of interest? Suspect? Whatever the official term is, Desmond knows he's potentially in a lot of trouble. But Sage is potentially in even more trouble.

"Hang on a second," Best says. "We have Sage's phone here, that's how we got your number. And it's how we have record of the…" there's a pause, like the guy is checking his details. "Sixteen calls you and he have exchanged in the past three months. Three of which came within half an hour of when Sage was abducted."

Desmond makes a noncommittal noise.

"What we don't have is your full name," the detective says. "Sage has you in his phone as Juno…?"

Of course he does. "It's Desmond," Desmond corrects. The detective is obviously still waiting for a surname, but Desmond isn't dumb enough to offer his real name to the police. "Miller," he says instead. It's a false name he'd used…years ago now. Probably before Sage was even born.

The rest of the conversation is unremarkable. Desmond gets directions and promises twice to be down as soon as possible. It's only when he's about to hang up when he realizes that the detective had used the word  _ abducted _ , and asks about it.

"Abducted?" he says. "Not run away?"

"Definitely abducted," the detective says. "We have footage from the school's security cameras of when he was taken away, so we know they were using a stolen Abstergo van. We just don't know why, or who was behind it."

Abstergo. Abstergo was behind it. Desmond would bet anything that van  _ hadn't  _ been stolen, that Abstergo's old interest in sages is flaring up again…

"Crap," Desmond says. "Oh  _ crap _ ."

He hangs up the phone and stuffs it in his pocket—looks up. Elena is standing in the doorway, watching him reproachfully. "Are you leaving again?" she asks.

"No," Desmond says, bending down to kiss the top of her head in hasty goodbye. "Not like last time, just for a few hours."

"Dad—"

"Go on," he says, ushering her toward the door. "Go play with Geraldine.”

She shakes her head no, then crosses her arms. "No," she says. "You're not allowed to go again!"

"Elena, I promise, I will be back by dinnertime.”

"Take me with you," she says.

" _ No _ , Elena."

"Why not?" she demands. "I brought you home last time."

"Well, yes. But you could have been really hurt—"

"Like you were?"

"And I don't know what I would do if anything bad happened to you."

"So you  _ are  _ going somewhere dangerous?" Elena asks.

"No," Desmond says. "Just to the police station, they want to ask me a few questions."

"If it's not dangerous, then I won't get hurt," Elena says.

Desmond groans and shakes his head. "Listen, Elena. Do you remember when you were little, and Abstergo had you hostage? For more than two years, do you remember that?"

Elena frowns and mutters a sulky yes.

"They just took someone else," Desmond says. "Just like they took you, just like they took me before you were born. I don't want to put you  _ anywhere  _ near that again."

She looks back at him, absolutely resolute. "I don't want them anywhere near  _ you  _ again," she says.

"Just… stay here today," Desmond says. "Please."

But she doesn't, she just follows him while he goes to find someone to drive him. Ezio volunteers first when he hears what's going on, and only raises his eyebrows when Elena trails them to the car. She gets into the back of the car and straps herself in, and Desmond can feel her eyes on him the entire drive.

And it's not a short drive. It takes a couple of hours, and every time Desmond turns around, Elena is still watching him.

And it's funny, because she's a kid, he's  _ her  _ parent not the other way around, but he actually does feel better with her watching him.

"You sure you want to do this?" Ezio asks when they finally get there. "They're cops. They keep records. They might get your DNA, or—"

"You have to stop watching cop shows," Desmond says. "I'll be fine, you don't have to come in or anything." He twists around. "Elena, you can stay too, or…"

She's already taking off her seatbelt and reaching for the door handle. "Come on, dad," she says. "Let's get this over with."

They leave Ezio laughing in the car and head into the police station. Desmond spins a story about not having a babysitter, his daughter's off school for the week, on and on. He's pretty good at getting sympathy when he wants it—Edward says he looks like a kicked puppy. Desmond thinks Edward sometimes acts like an overexcited puppy, so that's fair.

In any case, Elena is allowed to stay, although she's told to wait in a separate area while Desmond  _ 'just answers a few questions.'  _ He's being steered away when he hears someone call his name. It's not a voice he immediately recognizes, so he turns around, guard up, to see a woman looking at him with an expression like disbelief.

"It is you," she says. "Do you remember me?"

"Uh—" He looks her over again, trying to dig up some memory. The woman is tall and thin with long brown hair halfway down her back. It's touched with gray near the roots, and her face is lined, but there's something about her face that gives Desmond a kind of aging, ex-hippie impression. Maybe ten, fifteen years ago, she would have been his type. But then he'd had a short lived relationship with this woman, Rosemary, and she'd been nice but  _ weird _ , and—

"Oh," Desmond says. "Rosemary?"

She grins and then hugs him with so much enthusiasm Desmond actually can't breathe. "What's he doing here?" she asks the police officer escorting Desmond. "How did you  _ find  _ him?"

"He—" the poor cop, a young guy that looks like he hasn't been on the job long, backs up a step in the face of Rosemary's intense expression. "I mean… didn't the detective tell you they were trying to track that number your son's been calling? Or—"

"Oh, Sage is calling  _ him _ ?" Rosemary says. "That's fine, that's okay. He's Sage's father."

Desmond tries to think of something to say, but he isn't sure he'd have been able to find the words even if Rosemary hadn't been squeezing the breath out of him. There's complete silence until Elena laughs. "No," she says. "No, he's  _ my  _ daddy."

"Elena," Desmond hisses.

"Aw—" Rosemary lets go of Desmond to smile down at Elena. "Hi there, sweetie."

Elena looks unimpressed.

"He's not my son," Desmond tells the cop. "I mean—I would know."

"You disappeared," Rosemary tells him. "A week later I found out I was pregnant."

"He's not mine," Desmond says again.

"I wasn't exactly sleeping with anyone else when I got pregnant," Rosemary says. "Sorry, honey. He's yours."

"I—"

"Wait. Why has he been calling you if neither of you knows you're related?" Rosemary asks.

"We met when he ran away," Desmond says. His brain is racing, trying to remember what past he'd been using when he knew Rosemary. There had been a lot of fake names back then, a lot of made up names and invented histories. He's pretty sure he'd told her he ran away from home—she'd been very sympathetic to some of the details he'd shared about his father. "And I mean I've been there, I figured I knew what he was going through, we talked…"

He trails off when he sees Rosemary starting to look convinced, and then that's all the time they have to talk before the detective that had called Desmond in the first place shows up for his interview. Desmond leaves Rosemary and Elena alone together (and tries not to be worried about that).

The interview takes nearly two hours. Desmond is distracted through the whole thing, he can't stop thinking about Rosemary's claim. He can't be Sage's father. It's absolutely impossible. Desmond would have—he would have known, wouldn't he? He'd known with Elena. Long before anyone had told him they were related Desmond had seen her picture and he'd just  _ known  _ that he had to protect that little girl.

Sage is obsessed with him, he's waiting for Desmond to turn back into Juno, he's—no. No way.

(But if it's true—well, that would just be absolutely typical, wouldn't it? Is it actually in Desmond's DNA, getting captured by Abstergo and held hostage? Did he somehow pass that on to Elena and…  _ and _ Sage?)

He manages to pick up on a few things. They show him pictures of the Abstergo van that had taken Sage, and Desmond catches most of the license plate while he's categorically denying any involvement and also arguing paternity with himself.

(Because what is  _ wrong  _ with him? Not knowing about Elena is one thing, he'd had good reason to believe Lucy was dead and no reason at all to think she was pregnant. But Rosemary? He should have—he should have done something, stayed in contact, waited just another week. Sage is a teenager already, it's…please,  _ no _ .)

He picks up as much as he can, gets the timeline figured out, tries to remember details for later. His dad and Shay are still tracking Abstergo, they'll be able to take anything Desmond learns here and point him in the right direction. And they won't mind doing it, either, this isn't an assassin and templar thing, Sage is an innocent.

They finally let him go—Desmond's not sure if it's Elena swearing six ways from Sunday that they'd stayed in and watched movies all afternoon yesterday while Sage was being taken, or Rosemary bullying the detectives, but either way he's released.

"Daddy—" Elena catches him almost immediately, grabbing at his hand. "Daddy,  _ she  _ says Sage is my brother but that's not true, right? Because he—"

Desmond squeezes her hand and shakes his head a fraction before she can say anything about Juno or kidnapping.

"...he's never around," Elena says instead. Then, grudgingly—"But he did give me a granola bar."

Desmond looks at Rosemary. "Just tell me," he says. "Are you really… are you absolutely sure that Sage is my son?"

"Yes," she says. "You were my first, Desmond. And there was nobody else until Sage was nine. Unless time travel was somehow involved, yes. You are definitely, absolutely, one hundred percent for sure the father of my son. Our son."

And now Abstergo has him. Right now they just think they have a sage, but how long will it be before they find out Desmond is his father? They'd held Elena for the first two and a half years of her life, because she was too young to be put into an animus.

Sage is old enough.

"Rosemary," he says, leading her gently out of the police station. This isn't something that needs to be overheard. When they're outside, he looks around. "I know who has…" he can't make himself say  _ our son _ . "Who has Sage. I don't know where they're taking him, but I can find out. And I'm going to get him out."

"You know," she repeats. "And you didn't tell the police because…?"

" _ Trust  _ me," Desmond says. "Please."

She hesitates.

"He can get him back," Elena pipes up. "He's really,  _ really  _ good at saving people."

Rosemary nods reluctantly, and Desmond thinks he can see tears on her face. Something like guilt twists up in his stomach. He keeps thinking that  _ no _ , he doesn't want to be a father again, not like this, not with all the weird history between himself and Sage, not when he hadn't known about him for fifteen years. But here's Rosemary, who's had to be a single mother for her son's whole life, who has lost him once already because of Juno, who might lose him forever because of Abstergo.

"I'm going to get him," he says. "I promise."

"Don't disappear this time," she says. "I'll give you my number. Call me if you find anything. Anything, do you understand?"

He does understand. He's still reeling, he's upset and lost but yes. Sage needs to be brought home. That much, at least, he understands.

* * *

(2)

* * *

They're not together anymore, but they're still friends. Desmond knows Evie, he trusts her. And here he is, sitting at the departure gate at an airport, heading for the Abstergo facility his dad says is most likely to be Sage's prison. And he's… confused. Hurt. Scared. Evie sees it as soon as she appears, and she puts her arm around his shoulders, letting Desmond lean into her embrace.

"Thanks," he says, and his voice is choked up in a way he doesn't like.

"What's wrong?" Evie asks.

"I have a son," Desmond says. "Sage—the one, you know, the guy from the Juno thing." He keeps it vague, because if this is an early enough Evie to still be mad at Jacob, Desmond really doesn't want to go down that road again. "Abstergo took him. I met his mother. I… we had a relationship for a while, a couple years after I ran away. Apparently I got her pregnant but I left. I never knew, I… what's  _ wrong  _ with me? Elena, Sage, how many other kids do I have out there? Why can't I just have a child and get it right?"

"It's not your fault," Evie says. "Desmond, I've seen you with Elena. You're a great dad. If you'd known about either of them when they were born, I'm absolutely certain you would have stayed with them, you would have done everything you could for them."

"But I didn't."

"Oh, Desmond…" She holds him tighter and lets Desmond cry and feel sorry for himself, just for a little while.

"Evie?"

"Yes?"

"Do you have kids?" he asks. "With Henry, I mean, do you…?"

Evie doesn't answer at first, but then at last she nods. "Not yet," she says. "But I'm two weeks late. It's too early to know for certain, but…" Desmond isn't looking at her face, but he can hear the smile in her voice. "I just know, I guess. And Henry's already thinking about names. Jacob's pouting—the last time he visited, I told him he wouldn't be the baby of the family anymore."

Desmond half laughs. "Sounds like Jacob."

"But I think he's happy for me," Evie says. "And—" she stops short, giving Desmond an almost guilty look.

"I get it," Desmond says. "You're happy for you, too. You're allowed. I'm happy for you, too."

"Thank you," Evie says. "I'm sorry for your son."

Desmond tries not to show his hurt when she says that—it's not just that he hadn't known about Sage, it's that he isn't ready to be Sage's father. "It's going to be so hard," Desmond says. "There's so much… weird shit between me and Sage, I don't know what I'm supposed to do here. Elena was easy, you know? When I found out about her, she was this sweet little girl. I wanted to protect her, and she loved me. Right away, you know? But Sage, he…"

"Desmond?" Evie prompts, when he trails off into silence.

"We've been talking," Desmond says. "Me and Sage. For months, you know? He's told me about his life, about his school, about his friends. We have actual conversations, and he still has me in his phone as Juno, that's who he's thinking about when he talks to me. How am I supposed to have a relationship with him?"

"You'll figure it out, I'm sure," Evie says. "You're a good person. A good father."

"No," Desmond says, sitting up a little so he's not leaning against her anymore. "No, it's too late for that. It's too—it's weird. I'll do what I can to get him back, because that's the right thing to do. But that's it."

"Oh, of course," Evie says. "I'm sure you'd do the same for anyone if Abstergo captured them, wouldn't you?"

"Yes," Desmond says.

"You'd just drop everything and run after any stranger," Evie pushes. "No doubt ignoring the advice of the people around you, who I'm sure told you it would be smarter to wait until you had a plan, or at least until you could all go together."

Desmond doesn't look at her. "No," he mutters. "No, it's… not a big deal."

The others had all urged him to wait, but Desmond had ignored them because it's not fair for Sage to be left alone in Abstergo's clutches, just waiting on a rescue. Of course Desmond has to help him, it's not like it's really a choice.

"Point is," Desmond mutters, staring at his hand in his lap. "Sage never has to know I'm his dad. It won't do any good, won't make any difference. I'll bring him back to Rosemary, talk to her about keeping quiet, then… figure out what to do from there. I don't know, I don't—"

He looks back up, expression pleading, but Evie has vanished and Desmond is left looking at the disapproving older woman who had been sitting on Evie's other side. She  _ hmpph! _ s loudly and shifts away.

Desmond shakes his head and goes back to waiting, and thinking, and then trying not to think, and then worrying, and then waiting again. Over and over in circles until he barely knows which way is up and which way is down, just that he's confused and unhappy, and he has no idea what to do.

Beyond rescuing Sage, obviously. He can start from there, and figure out what to do after that.

The plane starts boarding, and Desmond stands. Suddenly, he's itching to leave.

* * *

(3)

* * *

It's almost funny, how easy it is to get Sage out of Abstergo. Desmond's not sure if he's just had enough practice by this point, or if he's becoming a better assassin, or if Abstergo is really starting to struggle from what his dad and Shay are doing. Maybe it's a little bit of all three. Whatever the reason, it takes Desmond barely two hours of surveillance to figure out the best way to reach Sage, and just over ninety minutes after that to put his plan into action. And yes, it's a hectic, tense ninety minutes, but all goes well and just like that Desmond is back on the outside with Sage.

The boy is on his feet but stumbling—Desmond thinks he's been drugged, so he takes him into a little diner a few blocks away. It's still too close to Abstergo's building for Desmond's taste, but he doesn't think Sage can make it much farther without giving the drugs a chance to wear off. Maybe the food will help.

The diner is a sketchy, shady kind of place, and even with Sage practically leaning against Desmond to stay on his feet, nobody gives either of them a second glance.

"There you go," Desmond says, sliding Sage into a booth near the back of the diner, away from the windows and around a corner from the door. He pulls back, planning to sit at the table across from Sage, but Sage shakes his head and clings to him.

"No," he says. "No, stay—"

Desmond hesitates. For the past hour and a half, he's been able to sort of turn his brain off and just focus on what he needs to do to get Sage back. But now that they're safely out, Desmond can't stop thinking about Sage being  _ his son _ , about how he's right here, about what he's supposed to do and what he wants to do, and how he has no idea what the answer to either of those questions is.

But then Sage groans, and Desmond thinks maybe his face is starting to turn green. So he tells himself that he's safer sitting next to Sage, less likely to be thrown up on if Sage loses whatever he's about to eat. That's the only reason he's sitting next to him instead of on the other side of the table, Sage's pleading hand on his arm has nothing at all to do with it, and neither does the pathetic look on his face, eyes half closed but looking up at Desmond…

Sage stays quiet while Desmond orders coffee and food, and only mumbles incoherently while they wait for it to arrive. But the smell of it, when it arrives, seems to revive him a little, and he comes to life enough to start poking at it with his fork.

"You okay?" Desmond asks.

Sage gives a one shouldered shrug. "I will be," he says. "I guess." But he doesn't sound very convinced.

"They won't get their hands on you again," Desmond says.

Sage shrugs again. "Doesn't matter."

"Come on," Desmond says, making an effort to sound cheerful. "I know being kidnapped sucks, but it's over now. You'll be back home with your mom in a couple of hours."

Sage focuses on the food in front of him, pushing it around on his plate but not eating a single bite. Desmond watches him, tense. He keeps trying to think of something to say but it's like the weight of that  _ thing  _ he doesn't want to tell Sage is sitting right on the edge of his tongue—Desmond is afraid that if he opens his mouth it's just going to fall out, and then Sage will know…

He can't know.

"Desmond?" Sage says, very quietly.

"Yea?" Desmond says. He's trying to think if Sage has ever used his name before. Not in a long time, that's for sure. Sage has this way of avoiding Desmond's name in conversation, and Desmond is pretty sure he's still calling him  _ Juno  _ in his head. Hearing Sage use his name now should make Desmond feel better, but more than anything it just worries him. It reminds him of when he'd been a teenager, the way he used to call William  _ sir  _ instead of  _ dad  _ when he knew he'd done something that would really annoy him.

"I screwed up," Sage says. His fork is frozen on his plate, but he's still staring at it like it's the most fascinating thing in the world.

"Hey," Desmond says. "I've been there. Being kidnapped's not so bad once you get out, and it's not like it was your fault."

"That's not it," Sage says. He hesitates, then says, "They gave me drugs."

"I'd noticed," Desmond says.

"And it made me not think straight," Sage says. "I talked about things I shouldn't have talked about. And it's all—it's kind of fuzzy, but they were really interested, I don't think they knew."

"Knew about what?" Desmond asks.

"Visiting," Sage says. "There was one of the other sages visiting me, that's where it started, and then I was telling them about my visitors, how all the sages are connected to each other. They really liked that."

"I bet," Desmond mutters. Abstergo has always had this weird obsession with sages, it makes sense they'd be fascinated by Sage telling them they could all see each other.

"And then… and then I told them about your visitors," Sage says. "And your daughter's. And they got—they got really excited about all that. I don't know what they wanted to know about visiting for, but I'm  _ sorry _ , I really am. I didn't mean to make things harder for you."

Desmond thinks it over. Whatever Abstergo wants to know about visiting for, it's not like they can suddenly make themselves start visiting. That would be vaguely terrifying. Just knowing about visiting won't make them any more dangerous than they had been before.

Hopefully.

"It's okay," Desmond says. "I mean, I'm sure they'll figure out some terrible way to use this against us—" Sage flinches and Desmond curses himself. He hadn't meant to sound so harsh, it should have been a joke, but maybe Sage isn't in the best place to be joked with right now. "But we'll take care of it when the problem comes up, okay? You don't need to worry about it."

"Really?" Sage asks. "You're not mad?"

Desmond shakes his head. "It's something we'll have to keep in mind from now on, but…" he shrugs. "I think we might be okay. We're smarter than them. We're  _ better  _ than them. We'll stay one step ahead of them and everything will be fine."

Sage shoots him a more genuine smile and then digs into his food. By the time the plate is empty, Sage looks alert and almost back to his full faculties. Desmond pulls some cash out to pay and moves to stand up, but again Sage grabs him to hold him back. "Hey," he says. "Thanks for getting me out of there," Sage says. "It was really bad, it was… well. Thank you."

"Of course," Desmond says. "Come on. Let's get you home."

And this time, Sage follows him.

-//-

They take the train back, because Desmond had flown out and he doesn't want to take the same route back. He and Sage sit together, but they don't talk. Sage looks like he wants to, and once or twice he makes an effort at something like casual conversation. It's like he's desperate to get back to some kind of normal, but Desmond can't say anything, he's tongue tied and miserable from the weight of the relationship they could have had. If Desmond had known, if he'd been there for Sage like he should have been, like a father is  _ supposed  _ to be, this trip back would have been so different.

Desmond can imagine it, the relief at having his son back, the desperate surge of conversation, trying to make sure Sage is okay,  _ really  _ okay. And instead there's just this awkward silence.

Or maybe it wouldn't have gone like that. Desmond can't imagine he would have been a good father to Sage. He'd been… what, eighteen when he last saw Rosemary? Nowhere near ready to have a kid. At that point, he'd still been trying to figure out how to live with all the way  _ his  _ father had messed him up. He would have been a shit dad, even worse than the absentee one he'd ended up as.

"Are you okay?" Sage asks, about halfway through the trip.

"Fine," Desmond says, looking out the window.

"Oh." Sage fidgets a little. "Yea. Okay then."

-//-

Desmond takes Sage back to the safe house instead of immediately going to Rosemary, for a couple of reasons. He wants to be absolutely sure Abstergo hasn’t followed them, for one thing, and a safe house is called safe for a reason. And for another thing, Desmond doesn't think he'd be able to take Sage home right now, just—just stand in that house with Rosemary and Sage like he actually has a place there.

Sage is drooping with tiredness again by the time they get there, and Desmond isn't feeling much better. He leaves Sage passed out on the couch, then pauses only long enough to hug Elena and assure her he's okay before going to his own room to sleep. He's not out for long, but when he gets up he finds that Sage is already awake. He's sitting on the couch, looking at Elena with something like extreme confusion.

Desmond can't blame him—she's standing just a little too close, arms crossed, studying Sage with a stone cold expression. Both she and Sage are positioned so that they can't see Desmond where he's standing in the doorway of his bedroom.

"I still don't like you," she announces.

"Um—sorry?"

"But," Elena goes on. "I talked to grandpa, and he says sometimes it's okay not to  _ like  _ your siblings, but you still have to  _ love  _ them."

"Wait," Sage says. "What?"

Desmond is frozen in place, he can't even make himself say a word. He's already decided not to tell Sage they're related, and here's Elena just… just casually spilling the beans like it's not supposed to be a secret.

"Listen," Elena says. "I'm saying you're allowed to be my brother, but I have conditions, okay?"

"Um…"

"Okay?" Elena asks again, a little louder.

"Okay," Sage says weakly.

“You have to be nice to everyone in the family,” Elena says, counting off on her fingers. “No more kidnapping.”

“That was technically Juno, not me--”

“And you have to give grandpa hugs,” Elena says, talking right over him. “Because he likes them but he likes to pretend he doesn’t. And it’s your turn to play house with Geraldine, because she  _ always  _ wants to play house and I’m tired of playing house with her, so--”

Desmond doesn’t mean to make a noise but he must have because both of them turn around sharply to look at him. Elena grins, happy to see him as ever, but Sage’s face is such a mix of conflicting emotions that Desmond can’t make out a single one.

After a very long pause, Sage says, “Dad?”

* * *

 

(4)

* * *

 

There's something about the look on Desmond's face that  _ scares  _ Sage. Because if it had just been Elena Sage could have believed that she's talking crap. She's just a kid, what does she know. But Desmond isn't giving him a look like  _ sorry my kid just said something weird _ , he's giving him a look like  _ I didn't want you to know. _

Sage gets up, almost knocking Elena aside. She makes a little squawking noise of protest, but Sage ignores her. He's looking at Desmond, and only at Desmond. "What's going on here?" he asks. "What aren't you telling me?"

Too late, Desmond makes an effort to rearrange his face. "Nothing," he says. "Everything's fine."

"Yea?" Sage says. His voice doesn't sound right in his ears. "Because  _ she  _ says she's my sister."

"No," Desmond says, too fast.

"Daddy!" Elena protests. "You told me lying's  _ wrong _ ."

"I know," Desmond says. "Elena—"

"Unless it's for a good reason," Elena adds. "Like not using our real names so we don't get caught by Abstergo, or when Connor broke his foot on a mission but he told the doctor he hurt it doing yardwork, or when I told Ezio I didn't have dessert yet so he'd let me have extra cake."

Desmond glances away from Sage for a second. "What was that last one?"

"Um…" Elena points at Sage. "The point is, you shouldn't lie to him, you're his daddy."

And there it is again, that… that  _ thing  _ Sage doesn't know how to deal with.

Elena crosses her arms. "You said we don't lie to each other," she says. "You said no matter what. And I know he's…" she makes a weird, circular motion with both arms that Sage assumes is supposed to reference the first time the three of them had met. Back then, Desmond hadn't been  _ Desmond _ , he'd been the thing getting in the way of Juno coming back. Now they've come full circle, and Desmond isn't Desmond  _ again _ , he's… dad. "He's weird," Elena says. "But you said…"

"No matter what," Desmond finishes for her. "Yea. I know." He heaves a great sigh and his shoulders slump. "Elena, can you go find your grandpa? I want to talk to Sage in private."

She nods and goes—and then Sage is alone with the man that might be his father. His  _ dad _ . He's never had a dad. Just stories from his mom about a friend she'd had when she was a teenager, nervous and sweet and a little bit awkward (her words, not his), how he'd gone from being a friend to being something a little bit more.

And then left.

"Is it true?" Sage asks, when Elena is gone.

Desmond nods. "I didn't know until you went missing. I met your mother. Well—I don't know if met is the right word." He glances away. "But we knew each other… fifteen, sixteen years ago."

"But not for long, right?" Sage asks.

"Obviously not long enough," Desmond says.

"This is…" Sage has never been good at standing still when he's nervous, and now is no exception. He paces, and ends up on the opposite side of the room from where Desmond's standing. It just feels safer there, with the whole of the room between the two of them. "This is  _ stupid _ ," Sage says. "If you walk into my life and I'm ten, that's one thing, that's great, I'm happy to see you. But you walk into my life now, when I've got all my shit figured out, and that's just something completely different, that's…"

He trails off, lost for words. Because he doesn't have anything figured out. His life is a fucking mess. It's all been downhill since Juno, and no matter how hard Sage tries to pretend he's done with her, that he's better off without her, he still can't quite forget her.

"Sage?" Desmond says. "Hey, Sage—"

"Why did it have to be you?" Sage asks, and he only knows he's crying when he hears the tears in his voice. "Why did she have to take  _ your  _ body? Or—or why did I have to be a sage? I wanted a dad! My whole life. And she ruined that, she ruined you just like she ruined everything else in my life." It's the first time he's said it out loud, this thing that's been bothering him for months now. Because Juno was supposed to be the best thing that ever happened to him, she's supposed to be the whole point of his life.

But Sage had left his home and his mom for her. He'd done things he still can't explain to himself, and even when he got home again she won't get  _ out of his head _ , he can't focus, he can't make himself care about things the way he used to. She's killing him.

Desmond is there, suddenly, his arm on Sage's shoulder, saying… something, but Sage can't hear any of it through the grief and confusion choking him. "I just want her gone," he says, over and over again, like if he just says it enough times it'll happen. "I wanted her my whole life and now I just want to be normal, I wish she'd never come back, I wish…"

"It's okay," Desmond says.

"Yea," Sage says, and the way he's crying makes his attempt at a laugh sound so, so pathetic. "Yea, sure it is."

"Maybe not yet," Desmond admits. "But it will be."

"Why?" Sage asks. "You think now that you're my d—my dad, you can just walk into my life and make everything better?"

It's pathetic but he's really hoping Desmond is going to say yes.

Desmond doesn't say anything at all, just squeezes Sage's shoulder. He looks as lost as Sage feels and right now that's pretty damn lost. Sage is wearing a too-large T-shirt Abstergo had put on him when they took him, and he uses it to wipe the tears and the snot off his face before he says, "What happens now?"

"No idea," Desmond says. "I guess that depends what you want."

"I don't know what I want," Sage says. "Can I just… can I have some time to figure it out?"

"Yea," Desmond says. "Yea, sure. I know neither of us was ready for this conversation. Take as much time as you need." He hesitates and then hugs him, briefly. Sage takes a deep breath and then grabs Desmond as he starts to pull away. He tells himself that this isn't a hug that means anything, it's not saying he needs Desmond as a dad or even wants him. It's just—it's for when he was six and asked Santa for a dad for Christmas, it's for when he was ten and sat up at night drawing pictures of what his family would be like if his dad ever came home. It's for when he was thirteen and realized his dad was never coming back. The night when he gave up.

The hug goes on forever, long enough for Elena to come running into the room, see the hug, and enthusiastically attach herself to it. "How much time do you think you'll need?" Desmond whispers over Elena's head.

Sage has to try two or three times before he can speak. "Not long, I don't think," he says. Because here he is in a hug with his dad and his half-sister. Because that's impossible, like being with Juno had been impossible. Because now he's met Juno, and he's met his dad. And Juno had made him feel broken and lost, and right now all he feels is found.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sage is actually slightly canon. If you haven't played Syndicate, or don't have the time to run around London picking up animus shards just to unlock a sixty second audio file, take a look at [this.](http://assassinscreed.wikia.com/wiki/Desmond_Miles'_son) :)


	82. Chapter 82

It's not a bad life, Lucy thinks. She's done a lot of things in her life, she's been a lot of things, held a lot of jobs. But now she gets to be a mother and a teacher, and—well, she likes one of those jobs more than the other but teacher isn't all that bad. It's better than a lot of things she's done. And even on the worst days, when the kids are being rowdy or restless or rude, Lucy can always look up and see Elena sitting front row center, smiling at her. That makes a pretty big difference.

They can't admit to being mother and daughter, of course, Lucy's using a false name and the last thing she wants is to put Elena in danger. But that doesn't mean they can't be close. Lucy knows the other kids tease Elena for how often she volunteers to stay in and help in the classroom instead of going out to recess. 

One day in April, when it's raining too hard for the kids to be sent out for recess, Elena asks to stay behind, like she usually does. For once, some of the other kids look jealous. With the rain pouring down, the kids will be confined to the gym instead of going out for recess, which (apparently) isn't any fun. But they go, and as soon as the room is otherwise empty, Elena runs over to Lucy and hugs her.

" _ Mommy _ ," she says. "Mom, dad took me and Edward to the swimming pool and Edward started teaching me how to swim but then he showed me how to do cannonballs in the deep water and dad says Shay or Connor has to teach me from now on and he should have known better." She grins.

"Cannonballs in the deep end?" Lucy says. She's simultaneously annoyed at Desmond for recruiting a pirate to teach their daughter to swim and grateful that at least she hadn't been hurt. Hopefully. "You're okay, aren't you?" she asks.

"Oh yea," Elena says. "Jacob's been teaching me to swim since I was like four."

"Which Jacob?" Lucy asks, because she is still really confused by everything she hears from Elena about visiting or whatever.

"The one that's my friend," Elena says. "Not the one that doesn't know she's a girl."

"Um…"

Elena grins. "When I was little I thought Jacob was a girl's name, because my Jacob is a girl, and _obviously_ I couldn't see the other Jacob."

"Right," Lucy says. "Of course, obviously."

"So I thought he was a girl too, and even though I'm not little anymore I still tell him he's a girl. I don't think he's figured out that I know he's a boy yet. It's funny."

"He's a boy?" Lucy asks. "Like a kid?"

"Not really," Elena says. "But Evie says he's like a little boy, and  _ he  _ says she's only his older sister by like four minutes so she doesn't get to say that but Evie says it's not cuz he was born second and it's just cuz he doesn't know how to act like a grownup."

"Evie?" Lucy hasn't heard that name before. "Is she one of your visitors, or your dad's?"

"Dad's," Elena says. She giggles. "That would be silly, how would dad kiss her if she was my visitor?"

"He kisses her?" Lucy asks, and it's—she's not sure what she's feeling right now. She'd slept with Desmond, yes. One night. She'd spent more nights with Rebecca and Shaun than she had with Desmond (and how strange is  _ that  _ thought? That if Desmond had worn a condom and Shaun hadn't, Elena might have been his daughter instead). He'd had a kind of… hurt puppy look to him that Lucy had liked at the time, and she'd been living under the pressure of knowing that she'd likely be outed as a templar spy any day. Desmond had been a bad choice, and not one she'd have made in any other circumstances.

But then there was Elena, and they're her parents. Like it or not, they have to have some kind of relationship. Of course, due to their complicated circumstances and Lucy's false identity their current relationship mostly consists of parent-teacher conferences and notes home. But Lucy has hope. She wants to stay in Elena's life after school lets out for the summer, and if Desmond is in a relationship with someone else—

Lucy's jealous. Not of her relationship with Desmond, but if that woman is going to try and replace her in  _ Elena's  _ life, that's an entirely different story.

"They don't kiss anymore," Elena says. "I don't know why. He really, really likes her, and he says she likes him too, but  _ I  _ don't know." She stares at the ground.

"Well, sweetie…" Lucy leans down to hug Elena, feeling pettily triumphant. "Sometimes relationships are complicated."

"That's what dad says about you and him when I asked him why you don't live with us."

"Elena—"

"But I think you just don't love each other," Elena says. "That's right, isn't it? You and dad don't…"

"No," Lucy says.

"Oh."

The rain pounds on the windows. Neither of them looks at the other.

"I thought you had to love someone to make a baby with them," Elena says. Lucy considers the biology lesson she would need to explain to Elena why that's not  _ quite  _ right, and decides against it.

"It's complicated," Lucy says.

"I don't  want  it to be complicated."

"Just wait until you're older," Lucy says. "I'm sure you'll find your own relationships to complicate."

"Ew," Elena says. " _ No _ . No boys! And no babies!"

And they talk about this until the end of recess when the other kids start to come back in, and they have to quickly pretend they're talking about homework.


	83. Chapter 83

Elena hangs back after class on the last day of school, pretending to take extra time to pack up her desk and sort through her backpack. It's not hard—all her classmates are ready for summer and bursting with excitement. In less than five minutes, Elena is alone in the classroom with her mom.

Her mom doesn't look good, so Elena walks up to her desk real slow, and taps her on the shoulder. "Mom?" she says.

The smile her mom gives her is a little wet and a little wobbly, and Elena is ready for her mom to reach out and ask for a hug. She doesn't though, which really confuses Elena. If this isn't the right time for hugs, she doesn't know what is. At home, she's likely to get half a dozen hugs before breakfast, and that's on a normal day. This _isn't_ a normal day, this is the last day of school when her mom's going to be her teacher. After this, they won't have an excuse to see each other regularly.

"Hey, Elena," her mom says. She coughs a little, but Elena can still hear her trying not to cry. "Are you ready for summer break?"

"Yea," Elena says. "Dad says he's going to take me on vacation, just me and him. Probably to the beach, I like the beach but I don't usually get to see it unless I'm visiting. But this is going to be different, dad says it's going to be just like we're normal people, like no assassins or templars or Abstergo or nothing."

"Anything," her mom corrects.

"Anything," Elena agrees. "Okay."

"That sounds like fun," her mom says. "Maybe you can send me a postcard."

"Or maybe you could come with?" Elena asks. "You and me and dad, all three of us?"

"No," her mom says quietly, reaching out to hold her hand. She squeezes it tight. "No, I don't think that would be a very good idea."

"Yea," Elena says. "That's what dad said too."

"Well sometimes he's right."

Elena frowns and roots through her bag with the hand her mom isn't holding with a death grip, and pulls out a sort of wrinkled invitation. It has ninja on it, because Edward had really, _really_ wanted pirates when they went to buy invitations but it's not his birthday and Elena knows ninja are the opposite of pirates. That's what the internet says. "Can you come to my birthday?" she asks, really, really hoping her mom will say yes. "It's June 24, I share with Ezio." She pushes the invitation across the desk. "There's going to be cake…"

Her mom picks up the invitation and looks at it for a very long time. Elena fidgets, but tries to stay still. "Dad said it was okay," she blurts out at last, when she doesn't think she can stay quiet another second. "I asked him, he said it was okay for you to come. And you don't even have to get me a present or anything, you can just come and that's okay."

Her mom lets out a sigh and nods. "I'll be there," she says. "But Elena, I want to talk to you about something very important, okay?"

"Okay."

"A minute ago," her mom says, obviously choosing her words carefully. "You said that your birthday was the same as Ezio's."

"Well it's not really the same," Elena assures her. "But we pretend because I don't know when my birthday really is."

"Oh, Elena..."

"It's okay," Elena says. "He was really nice about sharing. Sometimes he isn't, like when we're almost out of cookies and he eats all of them before anyone else can have any, but he shared his birthday."

"But you do know, I mean—" she gets quieter, just a little. "When you say _Ezio_ , that's just a game you and your dad play, right?"

Elena grins. "What?"

"You know he's not real?" her mom says. "Or—well he's real, but he's been dead for a very long time."

Elena nods. "Well, yea. That's how visitors come back, they die and then they come here."

"That's not possible," her mom says.

"Don't be silly, mom," Elena says. "Of course he's real. You can meet him at my birthday party, okay?"

"But—"

Elena shakes her head and looks at the clock on the wall. Altair's coming to pick her up today because everyone else is busy on a mission, and he doesn't like it when she's late. She has to be down in the parking lot at 3:15 exactly. "I have to go," she says. "Altair doesn't like it when I'm late."

" _Altair_?" her mom echoes. "Elena!"

"What?"

"He's not real," she says, sounding absolutely exasperated. Which is silly because why wouldn't Altair be real? Elena knows she's not supposed to tell anyone else about her visitors, or her dad's, but this is her mom. She's supposed to believe Elena.

"I thought dad told you about visits," Elena says.

"Well, yes," her mom says. "But Elena, there's—have you ever heard of the bleeding effect?"

"Come see," Elena says, getting up and tugging her mom with her. "You'll see, Altair's for real."

The parking lot is empty when the two of them get there—apparently, no one wants to stick around on the last day of school. But Altair pulls up after less than a minute, so Elena is right on time. She lets go of her mom when he gets out of the car, and goes running over to him. He doesn't want to get out of the car right away, he says he wants to get home, but Elena begs and begs until he gives in and comes with her to meet her mom.

…who is just _staring_ , mouth open, at Altair.

Elena laughs behind her hand and Altair does that thing with his face where he tries to pretend he's not uncomfortable. But Elena knows. It's very close to his scary face, and maybe that's why her mom suddenly looks nervous.

"You're real," she says, staring at Altair. "I mean—you're alive."

"Yes," Altair says.

"You're—does that mean the others are real, too?" Lucy asks. "All those other people Elena keeps talking about? Famous, dead assassins?

"And templars, mom," Elena pipes up. "Grandpa and Shay are templars."

"I don't—that's not—"

She keeps stuttering for a little while after that, but eventually pulls herself together.

Elena runs back to hug her mom goodbye, and to make her promise again to come to her party. Then—it's time to go.

-//-

Two weeks later, Lucy arrives at the address Elena had written on her invitation. It's her daughter's birthday, or close enough, and Lucy wouldn't have missed it for the world. The house is insane when Elena comes to answer the door. Someone is singing, off key, and the walls are covered in what looks like an explosion of streamers and little sparkling stars. There are at least three kids running around the house, not counting Elena. Two younger girls, and… no, actually, that last one's a fully grown man.

"That's Edward," Elena says. "He's silly."

"He's drunk," a second man corrects, drily, as he walks up beside them.

"Grandpa!" Elena shouts. "This is my mom."

"We've met," the man says, but Lucy thinks _met_ is probably too strong a word. They've seen each other, once or twice, when he comes to pick Elena up from school, but never had so much as a single conversation.

She holds out her hand. "Lucy Stillman," she says. Her real name falls strangely on her tongue after all these years.

He shakes her hand, a little stiffly. "Haytham Kenway."

Oh _God_ , and just when she was getting used to the fact that Altair and Ezio live here. Lucy tries to stay casual. "I've heard that name before," she says. "You were a templar."

"I still am," he corrects. "Which is more than I can say for Abstergo—"

Elena goes running off, shouting that her grandpa is talking about 'boring templar stuff' again, and Lucy lets her go, but keeps a habitual eye on her anyway. It's just instinct, she can't help it.

"So you're a templar," Lucy says, half turning back to Haytham. "Who doesn't like Abstergo?" And, Lucy does not add out loud, he cares very much for Elena.

"Yes," he agrees.

"I think…" she hesitates, but goes on. "I would like to talk to you some more."

He nods, and gives her a very small but surprisingly sincere smile. "I think we should," he agrees.

That summer, Lucy spends a large amount of her time at that safe house. Some of that time is spent with her daughter, just spending time with her, talking or playing games. It's amazing. But then there are other times, when Elena is busy or out of the house, when Lucy finds herself falling into conversation with Haytham, or his... friend (?) Shay. She's not really sure what's going on between the two of them and Shay's wife, Aveline. They talk about the templars, and why exactly Abstergo needs to be taken down to let the order really matter again.

Lucy wants to be a part of that. In September, when Abstergo tracks down this safe house and the... the _visitors_ have to move on, they tell Lucy where they're going. She doesn't come with, but she keeps in touch with her daughter, she keeps talking about the templars with Haytham and Shay. And for the first time in a long time, she thinks she can see a way forward in her life.

A templar, and--more importantly--a mother. Yes. She can do that.


	84. Chapter 84

Lucy spends most of the afternoon pretending she's not hanging around her apartment's front window, watching the street outside. It's been nearly a year since she last saw Elena, and while they keep in touch through phone calls and Skype, it's not the same. Lucy has missed enough years, she hates that she's just let another one pass by. Sometimes, on bad days, Lucy wants to find Desmond and just _throttle_ him for taking her baby away. It's not fair that he gets to live with her and Lucy is supposed to be content with phone calls and the occasional visit. She'd raise a fuss, except—well, she thinks that if it came down to it, Elena would pick Desmond over her in a second.

It breaks her heart.

But today, Shay and Haytham are bringing Elena by to stay before they go after an Abstergo facility in South America. It's an emergency, apparently, that's the only reason they're going—the others, the assassins, are already away taking care of some _other_ emergency in Australia. That leaves no one to watch the girls, and Lucy had volunteered as soon as she heard. She doesn't know Geraldine or Grace very well, but she's stayed with teaching as a cover story. She's pretty good with kids. Besides, it's only supposed to be a couple of days. They'll be back by the weekend.

And Elena will be here too, of course. That means a lot. When the car finally pulls up, Lucy hurries downstairs to greet them. Elena runs out of the car and _throws_ herself at Lucy, hugging tightly. There's some muscle there, she thinks, more than there had been a year ago. Not a _lot_ , of course, Elena has only just turned eleven, so it's not like she's turning into a body builder or anything. But Lucy knows Elena's assassin training had started just after she turned ten. That's the traditional age, for both the assassins and the templars, and Lucy has never questioned that before. But her little girl is still a baby, she's too young for all this.

"I missed you," Lucy says.

"Missed you too," Elena says, hugging her back. Back by the car, Geraldine is shouting something that sounds vaguely teasing at Grace, who is still strapped into her car seat and stubbornly refusing to leave. Lucy can hear her crying.

"Grace doesn't want to stay here," Elena informs her. "She wants to go with her dads. And Geraldine keeps calling her a crybaby."

Well, that doesn't make for a good start. Lucy untangles herself enough from Elena to be able to walk, and—with her arm still wrapped around Elena's shoulders—she heads over to the car. Haytham looks at Lucy, half defensive and half apologetic. "Do you mind if I try?" Lucy asks. He nods, tired and stressed, and Lucy crouches down so she can see inside the car. "Hi, Grace," she calls.

Grace glares out at her. She's small for a five year old, red-eyed and pouty, but the glare is still relatively intimidating. "I don't wanna stay with you," she says. "I wanna go with daddy and papa."

"Crybaby!" Geraldine shouts from the sidewalk.

"That's not nice, Geraldine," Shay scolds.

"Sorry…"

Lucy considers her options for several seconds, keeping a smile on her face as she thinks. Finally, she says, "I'm making pizza tonight."

Grace's mouth is halfway open, no doubt to continue protesting that she doesn't want to come inside, when she suddenly stops and reconsiders. "With pepperoni?"

"If that's what you want," Lucy says.

Grace nods, then unbuckles and slides out of her seat. She darts past Lucy and starts the process of saying goodbye to Haytham and Shay. It takes a while, and by the time she has reluctantly let the two of them go, Lucy, Elena, and Geraldine have moved the girls' things into the apartment. They all move inside, and then Grace stands on the couch next to Lucy's front window so she can see out, and waves despondently at the car until it's driven away and out of sight.

Lucy had promised to make pizza—she takes out the dough, cheese, sauce, and everything she has in the fridge that might make a good topping. It takes a couple minutes, but before long Grace has joined the rest of them in the apartment's tiny kitchen, and inside half an hour they're all covered in flour and sauce. Grace is giggling as she chases her big sister around the kitchen, trying to get her sticky fingers onto Geraldine's shirt, and Lucy catches Elena throwing her a proud look. That feels pretty good.

They finish the pizza, then Lucy sits them in front of the TV watching one of the half dozen Disney movies they'd brought with them while she cleans the kitchen. Then it's time to put Grace and Geraldine to bed. Grace remembers she misses her parents and starts crying again, and now that it's dark and they're about to spend the night in a strange place, Geraldine gets a little teary eyed too. It's not fun, putting the two of them in bed and then getting them to sleep, but they finally curl up together on the couch and drift off.

Lucy breathes a sigh of relief, and goes back to her own room. There, she finds Elena waiting in her bed, looking a tiny bit nervous. "Can I sleep in your bed with you?" she asks, and she sounds very, very small when she says it. "Am I too big?"

"Of course you can sleep here," Lucy says. She drops into bed next to Elena, and her daughter inches closer to lean against her side. For a minute it almost feels normal, it feels like they've done this a hundred times before. Like it's not the first time Lucy's ever spent a night with her daughter.

"Thank you," Elena says.

"For what?"

"Watching us while everyone else is on missions," Elena says.

"Of course," Lucy says. "I'm always here for you, okay? Always. No matter what."

"Really?"

"I promise."

Elena falls asleep against Lucy's shoulder a few minutes after that, so Lucy doesn't dare leave for the rest of the night. Not that she would want to. Really, there's nowhere on Earth she'd rather be than right here.

She catches herself hoping that the emergencies that have taken the assassins and templars away from the country will last a while. She could get used to this.


	85. Chapter 85

Desmond is used to dropping in on visitors in the middle of sex. It's stopped bothering him, honestly. He actually lives in the same building as Shay and Aveline now, which is practically the same thing as visiting them having sex. Just as inescapable. And yes, Desmond will raise a fuss, because it's expected of him and Ezio teases him when he forgets to complain, but… yea. There are only so many times a person can be forced to watch their friends have sex before it stops being interesting.

This time it's interesting. It's—this time, Desmond can't take his eyes off his visitor. Because—because it's one thing to tell Evie she's free to make her own choices, it's one thing to sit in his own bed with Elena and tell himself that this is all he needs, that Henry makes Evie happy and that's enough. Safe in his own home, Desmond can even believe it.

But he doesn't want to know  _ exactly  _ how happy Henry makes her. He doesn't want to see them in Henry's bed, tangled together, bodies pressed so closely they might as well have been one person. He doesn't need to hear Evie moaning, hear her call  _ his  _ name.

He can't stop thinking about his own nights with Evie, making unfair comparisons between himself and Henry, wondering if she'd been this excited when he—

No, no that's not  _ fair _ . It's not fair. And as long as he sits here with his back to the bed and his hands over his ears, eyes closed tight, reminding himself how unfair he's being… as long as he keeps doing that, maybe this visit won't be as painful as it could have been.

It seems to take forever. Maybe it's just Desmond's mind playing tricks on him. Or maybe they're… really, really enjoying it. He hopes it's just his mind playing tricks on him. At some point, it occurs to him to wonder if Evie knows he's there. She might not have noticed she has a visitor, she's certainly distracted.

The noises taper off and then stop. Desmond turns around, carefully. They're done now,  _ finally _ , but still curled together on the bed. Evie is on her side, facing Desmond with her eyes closed, her back up against Henry's chest, his arm around her. Evie's smile is plainly visible, calm and relaxed. Henry's is half hidden because his head is behind hers, but Desmond can hear him murmuring to her, low and quiet in her ear, and although he can't hear the words he can hear the smile in Henry's voice. Desmond starts to turn away—somehow, the intimacy of this moment makes watching it feel more invasive than being witness to the sex a few moments earlier.

But as he's turning his head, he sees Evie open her eyes. And just for a second, their eyes meet, and it's the worst part of the whole visit so far. "I'm sorry," Desmond says aloud. "I didn't want to come here." Only that's a lie, because she's still Evie and he's still in love with her. Even in these circumstances, seeing her is just… it's lighting him up inside.

Evie nods like she understands, but she can't say anything because Henry can hear  _ her _ . She closes her eyes and Desmond doesn't blame her. He takes a breath and stands up. "Evie," he says. "Sorry, I know I shouldn't be here right now, this is for… right now is just for you and him. I just have to say one thing and then I'll shut up, but it's important. I think that if you love him—" And she does. "If you love him, you shouldn't lie to him. I don't know if you and Jacob want to tell him about visiting, but you should… I mean, we were together, and it was…." Recent. Messy. Complicated. "I'll probably be back here again, watching you two do, you know. What you just did. It might help if he knows something."

She nods again, less than the last time, and to his relief Desmond's visit ends there.

-//-

When the feeling of visiting fades, Evie rolls over to face Henry. "Hey," she says.

"Hmm?"

She hesitates. "Never mind. This is a bad time."

"No," he says. "Whatever you wanted to say, go ahead."

"I…" she could probably tell him about visitors. She doesn't  _ think _ Jacob would mind. For all he teases her about her relationship with Henry, she knows they trust each other. They're friends. And Jacob will love the opportunity to brag about knowing Altair and Ezio.

"Evie?"

"I was in a relationship," Evie says instead. "Recently. Within the last few months."

"Since we've known each other?"

Evie nods. "His name was—is—" Will be? "His name is Desmond. And it was…" she can't find the words, it's so hard to tell him. He's going to think she doesn't love him but she  _ does _ . "I was in love with him," Evie says. "In some ways I still am, but he's—not…he's—"

"Evie?" He half sits up, his unguarded face an open book of concern, hovering on the edge of hurt like he's preparing himself to be crushed.

He lives in the future and I was married to you in another universe. The choice wasn't easy but I had to choose you. "He's gone. And I don't know how to forget him but it doesn't keep me from loving you."

"I know," Henry says. "I mean, I don't understand about this… Desmond." His face twists a little on the name, and Evie can't blame him for that. She'd have been similarly jealous if Henry admitted to feelings like that for some other woman. "But I know you love me. I look at you, and I see that you love me, and it's…" He helps Evie to sit up next to him, and then brushes a stray lock of her hair away from her face. His hand is warm and gentle, careful. "I don't want to let…  _ Desmond _ ruin what we have." Again, there's that little twist of his face on Desmond's name. It's almost cute. Later, much later, when this isn't so strange, Evie might even dare to use the word in front of Henry. But there's another word that's safer right now.

"I do love you," she says. "I do."

"Then all I ask is that you don't talk about him in front of me," Henry says. "Please."

"That's reasonable."

He smiles, fondly, and she pulls him in close for a kiss—and at that exact moment, Jacob shows up on a visit.

_ Perfect _ . Just perfect.


	86. Chapter 86

He is small, very small, and he doesn't have the words for the big world he lives in. But it doesn't matter, nothing much matters because he has his papa and maman like two strong walls keeping the rest of the world away, and Rory doesn't need anything else.

His very favorite thing in the world is when his papa comes and picks him up and rests Rory on his shoulder. Rory grabs his papa's shirt and holds on tight, and looks out at the world like a grownup does, all tall and important. Or sometimes, his papa will just hold his hand, and walk slowly along next to Rory while he tries his very best to make his shaky legs walk right.

But then one day his papa's hand is just gone, and Rory falls hard backwards, his little hand closing on empty air. He doesn't so much notice that he's somewhere different than he was a minute ago than he does that his papa isn't there. And Rory is worried, because what is he supposed to do without his papa or maman there to help him stand up?

"Aw— _Rory_."

A big girl is at his side suddenly, and maybe she's laughing at him a little bit but when she smiles it looks like his maman's smile, and when she holds out her hand to help Rory stand up it feels just like his papa. "Where _papa_?" Rory asks, craning his neck up to look at the big girl. "Where go?"

"He'll be back soon," the big girl promises. She keeps laughing. "You're so _little_ , Rory."

Rory just looks at her. Of course he's little. So what?

"I'm your sister," the big girl says. "I'm Jeanne. And I'm going to take care of you while you're visiting me, and you're not going to argue or say bad things about templars, alright?"

"Huh--?"

But Jeanne doesn't explain, and Rory is okay with that. He didn't know he had a sister, but she's gonna take care of him like papa and maman so that's alright. He holds onto her hand tight, and toddles after her wherever she goes.

Later, when he's older and knows about visiting, Rory will never be able to consciously remember his first visit. Most of the others can say they remember, that on _this_ day they didn't know about visiting, and then the _next_ day they did. But Rory's known for as long as he can remember, he'd started really, really young, too young to really remember that first visit.

But then sometimes, when he's drifting off to sleep, he'll have a flash of… something, of being very small and holding onto Jeanne's hand, of not knowing where he is or what's going on but knowing he has a sister to count on. And there are certainly worse ways to start visiting, aren't there?

-//-

Rory is five and Jeanne is four when she comes running up to him, bouncing and full of energy. "Rory!" she says. "Rory, Rory, guess what!"

"What?" he asks.

"Visiting is _real_ ," Jeanne says, like this is some big, important discovery and not something Rory's known practically forever. "Papa and maman are right, they're not crazy like Philippe always says." She points to herself, proud. " _I_ went on a visit. And I just made a new friend, her name is Elena but the grownups call her Eighteen and she's even littler than Tomas and she's sad 'cuz she's locked up somewhere but I played with her."

"Okay," Rory says.

Jeanne wrinkles up her nose, obviously not satisfied with this answer. "I bet you're just _jealous_ ," she says. "Because I got to visit and you don't."

"Sure," Rory says. And he grins when she storms away, because it's funny to annoy his little sister. Besides, it's going to be really, really funny when she realizes they can visit each other.

That revelation comes a couple months later, when Jeanne stops eating in the middle of her supper, slides off her chair, and runs around to where Rory is sitting so she can hit him.

"Ow!" Rory protests. "Jeanne, ow!"

"You didn't tell me!" Jeanne says, and Rory guesses she's just seen him on a visit. He starts laughing and she hits him again, and then papa scolds Jeanne for hitting Rory and sends her back to her chair to finish supper. But she keeps looking across the table at Rory after that, and she still looks a little angry for not telling her, but there's something else there too. She looks… different to Rory, somehow, like now that she knows, there's this connection between them. Cuz they're visitors. Yea. And as annoying as Jeanne can be sometimes, she's still a visitor, and maybe that counts for even more than her being his sister.


	87. Chapter 87

Edward wanders downstairs late, still half hungover and very definitely unhappy about the gross unfairness of being dragged out of bed at the unholy hour of nine in the morning.

"You can't do this," Ade lectures him as he prods Edward down the stairs to breakfast. He's an older Ade, old enough to believe in visiting, and Edward wishes viciously that the younger Ade that thinks he's hallucinating had shown up instead. He would have let Edward stay in bed, because he wouldn't have believed Edward was real.

"I _can_ ," Edward grumbles. "I'm very good at getting drunk and sleeping all morning."

"Fine," Ade says. "Then you shouldn't do this. There are kids in this house, Edward."

Edward stops for a second, right where he is. "You really think I'd hurt one of the girls?" he says.

"No," Ade says as he prods Edward on. "That's one thing about you, Edward, I've never seen you hurt a child. But when you're dunk you get a little… you know. Loud."

"I'm always loud."

"You also get stupid," Ade says. "I don't want to think what you might say or do around one of those kids if you—"

He stops talking all at once, and actually takes a step backward. "Edward—" And his tone is very different, suddenly. "I know my vision's not what it used to be, but is that—that's not." He laughs, a nervous laugh without humor. "He's the spitting image of that sage Roberts, isn't he?"

"Wha—oh _Christ_." Edward looks from Ade over to the kitchen table, and sure enough there's a boy sitting there with the exact same face as the man that had once stranded Edward in the observatory and left him for dead, who had later turned him into the authorities for the bounty—and looking at that face now, suddenly it's like Edward is gibbeted again, hung up in a cage and left to rot because of _Roberts_ , because of what he'd done—

"Edward, hey."

Edward flinches and looks up at Desmond, sitting across the table from that… that _person_ with Roberts's face. "What's he doing here?" Edward asks, too loud. Normally this would be the point where Ade starts prodding at him to behave, but for once Ade is silent, either because he's too surprised to speak or because he actually agrees with Edward.

"This is Sage," Desmond says. "That's right, you haven't met him yet."

"That's your _son_?" Edward repeats. He's heard of Sage, obviously, he'd heard something about Sage being a sage (and thought it was hilarious), but… but… "This is Sage? He—what?"

Sage flushes pink and looks desperately up at Desmond. The expression looks all wrong on that face. Edward can't imagine Roberts making a face like that, no, he'd be laughing, looking at Edward with that cocky expression…

"What's wrong?" Desmond asks. "You look like you've just seen a ghost."

"I have," Edward says.

"Roberts," Ade adds.

"Roberts?" Desmond repeats. "Who's that?"

"He's one of the other sages," Sage mutters. "He's, um… he's not nice."

"Yea, that's putting it mildly," Edward snaps. "Desmond, why did you bring him here?"

"I just told you," Desmond says. "He's my son."

"No," Edward says. "No, I don't care, he can't be here—"

"Edward," Desmond says. "What are you talking about?"

"Not with that face!"

Sage stands, backing away from the table. "I should… my mom's coming by to pick me up in a couple minutes anyway, I'll just go wait for her…"

He hurries out of the room, and Edward watches his every move like a hawk. From behind, where Edward can't see that face, he looks just like any other kid. He pauses in the doorway just long enough to bend down and pull on a pair of scuffed up gym shoes—then he glances backward, sees Edward still glaring at him, and makes a dash for the doorway.

"You can't trust him," Edward says, rounding on Desmond.

"It's weird," Desmond says. "I know, I'm still trying to wrap my head around all the shit he's going through, but I don't really think he's a bad guy."

"No," Ade says from Edward's shoulder. "He's right. That sage we knew, Bartholomew Roberts, he was… an unsavory character."

"The two of you were pirates," Desmond says skeptically. "That's fairly unsavory."

"Yes," Ade says. "And Roberts was worse. Normally I wouldn't advocate judging a person based on what they look like, but Desmond—he's got the exact same face. _Exactly_ the same. And those eyes—"

"It's called heterochromia," Desmond says defensively. "Just means they're two different colors."

"No," Ade says. "There's something more to it. There's something there."

Desmond stands. "Look," he says. "I know he looks like someone you two have a history with, but Sage is not this Roberts guy, okay? He's a kid, and he's been through a lot, and _he's not Roberts_."

"He just makes my skin crawl," Edward mutters. "How would you feel if someone walked into the house that looked like your d—like William Miles?"

"Who?" Ade asks.

"My father," Desmond mutters. "Genetically."

"And he was a horrible father," Edward adds. "Seriously, Desmond, how would you feel if some William Miles lookalike walked into the house tomorrow?"

"He's here already," Desmond says softly, after a long, horrible pause. "I don't know if you ever visited me when he was the age I am now, but—yea. I look a lot like him. I look in the mirror and it's like seeing him. And it's hard, because I can't stand the man, but he's gone. He's not in my life anymore because of a decision _I_ made. And Sage—he can't help the way he looks, he can't help that he was born with that face. But he's my kid and I don't want to hear you talking about him like this again, okay?"

Edward drops his gaze and nods.

"I'm sorry," Ade adds. He still sounds doubtful, Edward thinks, but… well, it's more than Edward feels like he can manage right now. Desmond nods and leaves the kitchen. When Edward wanders out after him, he finds Desmond with Elena and Sage in the hall by the door, Elena hugging Sage goodbye and Sage grinning in this nervous way like he isn't quite sure what to feel.

"It's still okay if I come visit, right?" Sage asks Desmond. "Because if it's weird, I don't have to come back."

Desmond shakes his head. "I don't know how much longer we'll be here," he says. "But if we move on to another safe house, I'll tell you. And no matter where we go, you should know you're always welcome there. And you can call, write—whatever. Okay? I want you in my life."

"What about—" Sage looks up and sees Edward, and Edward sort of fidgets. It's so hard not to see Roberts when he looks at Sage.

"Don't mind me," he says, forcing a smile for Desmond's sake. "I'm a real mess, ask anyone."

He's expecting some kind of agreement from Ade, but—no, his visit is over, apparently. Edward feels suddenly very alone. And far too sober. "Sorry," he says.

Sage shrugs with one shoulder, but his nervous smile looks a little more certain. "Thanks," he says.

"Yea," Edward says. He stands around for a few more minutes, awkward and uncomfortable, and then turns and heads upstairs. He goes as quickly as he can without making it look like he's running away. This kid, having him around—it's going to take some getting used to.


	88. Chapter 88

There are times now when Haytham will look at Desmond and see nothing but the echo of William Miles in his face. The moments are always brief and fleeting, but they linger in Haytham's mind like a heavy weight. He doesn't know a lot about what the assassins are doing, but he knows that things have not been going particularly well. All the assassins are tense and quiet these days, even Elena and Geraldine. At sixteen and twelve respectively, they're still too young and untrained to really be part of assassin business. But they clearly know what's going on, more than Haytham does at any rate.

All Haytham knows is that there's _something_ wrong.

Today when he walks into the kitchen, he finds Desmond slumped across the table, a huge amount of papers scattered across the open surface. Haytham sees maps, what looks like a schedule, some other files he doesn't recognize—but he doesn't care about those as much as he cares about Desmond.

He's leaning forward, head in his hand, rubbing at his temple like he's fighting a nasty headache, and his expression is just… tired. Cold. Almost stern. And he looks so much like William just then that Haytham can't stand it. He knows that Desmond _isn't_ William, but he just… he looks like him at this moment. The older he gets, the more he seems to grow into the other man's face.

"Desmond," he says, coming over to sit beside his son. "Do you want to… would talking help?"

Desmond looks up and takes a breath. "I can't," he says. "It's assassin business, dad."

"I know," Haytham says. "I'm not asking about that, I just… hate seeing you like this."

Desmond stays quiet for a while. Then he says, "We messed up. I can't go into details, obviously, but… we tried to get some stuff away from Abstergo, but an informant double crossed us and it was—bad. They got a lot of intel from us. Names, safe houses, other details. And not just us, they got what we had on other assassins. So we keep trying and trying to fix it, but…"

"Do you need help?" Haytham asks.

"It's assassin business—"

"There has to be something I can do," Haytham says. "Anything."

"Can we just… talk?" Desmond asks. "About anything else? I just need a break from all this."

"Of course," Haytham says. He casts about for a change of subject, but in this moment all he can think of is hugging Desmond. So he does, leaning forward and wrapping Desmond in a tight hug that lasts for several seconds. It's funny, almost, to think how hard this had been once. Now it comes as easy as breathing, and he can tell from the way Desmond leans against him and the little shuddering sigh he gives, that he's doing the right thing.

"Did I tell you what Grace told me the other day?" Haytham asks when they pull apart. He pretends not to notice Desmond quickly wiping at his eyes, and just focuses on changing the subject. "She came home from school and told me that she has a boyfriend."

"A boyfriend?" Desmond repeats, smiling. The shade of William on his face wavers in the face of that smile. "She's nine."

"I know," Haytham says, smiling fondly. "She said they just play on the monkey bars together at recess, obviously they're too young to be dating." Besides, if Haytham thought for one second that Grace was serious about having a boyfriend, he'd be sitting down for a very serious and most likely somewhat threatening conversation with the boy. That's his baby girl.

"It's scary though, isn't it?" Desmond asks. "How quickly they grow up. I can't believe how big Elena's getting. I used to be able to carry her around, and now she's—well, she's this beautiful, intelligent young woman. And I couldn't be more proud of her but at the same time I wish she'd just… stop growing for a while. I want to hold onto her a while longer, you know?"

"I do," Haytham assures him. They go on talking about their daughters, and the glow of pride on Desmond's face chases the last of William away. Surely—and Haytham cannot pretend the thought does not cause him _some_ pain—William Miles had never looked like this when he told people about his son. But at least it makes Desmond look like himself again, and not like William. He's smiling.

At the end of their conversation, Haytham knows he hasn't done as much as he wanted to make Desmond feel better. But how much _can_ he do, when whatever's worrying Desmond is so clearly assassin business? At least he's helped him feel better for tonight.

"Thanks," Desmond says, getting to his feet and starting to gather up the papers. He doesn't even protest when Haytham helps him collect them, and doesn't seem to notice when Haytham spends a long moment looking at some of the diagrams. He's pretty sure he recognizes that facility.

Maybe he has an idea which Abstergo building he and Shay should target next.


	89. Chapter 89

Evie is terrified for all the weeks she spends searching for her brother. Jack has him, Jack the Ripper, and if Evie hasn't had visits from older Jacobs in the past, she would be legitimately worried that Jack has killed her brother. But there are so many things Jack can do to Jacob that are worse than killing him, and Evie feels she will not be calm again until she knows Jacob is alright.

In the end, she does manage to find Jack. They fight, and the conflict is dirty and fierce and vicious but in the end, Jack lies dead at Evie's feet. She curses him, a long rattle of condemnations that are still better than what he deserves. The man is twisted, a monster.

And Evie had killed him. It's strange, because she's killed so many people in her life but somehow it has never felt personal. Not like this. Jack is a thing that lives in the darkness, a twisted, shriveled up soul in a grown man's body, trying to drag the rest of the world into the darkness with him. Evie had felt it, in her fear and desperation when she chased Jack through London and eventually fought with him. She would have done anything to kill him, used any underhanded trick. In the heat of the moment, she would have destroyed herself to see Jack ruined.

Only time will tell if that's what she's done. Evie had hurt Jack, in that fight. She'd meant to, she'd _wanted_ to. He's taken her brother, and Evie had wanted him to suffer. That was wrong of her. It was vindictive, it was—

A matter for another day, that's what it is. For now, Evie has to find Jacob. This is Jack's stronghold, so he'll have Jacob here somewhere. He has to, because he's _dead_ and if Jacob's somewhere else then Evie will never, never find him. She goes dashing through the passages and halls, trying to call for Jacob. But her voice sticks in her throat and in the end, Evie can only concentrate on running.

She finds him at last, and unlocks the room where he has been held. In the doorway she stops abruptly, panting and unable to take another step forward. Jacob is here, and he is alive. Beaten and bruised and bloody, but alive. Evie can tell, because dead men don't cry, and Jacob is sobbing, ragged, broken tears, leaning sideways against Arno.

"…hur—hurts," Jacob whimpers. "Don't go, Arno, don't—"

"Shh," Arno says. He holds Jacob closer, and looks up at Evie. Jacob still has his eyes closed—one of them looks like it's swollen closed, and Evie thinks it might be infected. "Jacob, you know I can't stay, I'm visiting. But Evie's here."

Jacob turns toward Evie and opens one eye—sure enough, the other doesn't seem to want to open. "Evie…?"

She kneels in front of him and reaches out to grasp his shoulder. It's thin. "I'm sorry—" Evie swallows and blinks back tears. "I'm sorry I took so long."

"You _came_ ," he says, but the flash of a smile that seems to bring his face back to life vanishes at once. "Or did—Jack, did he take you, too?"

"He's dead," Evie says, and Jacob's smile comes back. Or—not _Jacob's_ smile, exactly. It's not cocky, not eager, not bright. It's a soft, small smile of pure relief, and Jacob sags back against Arno.

"He's dead," he echoes.

"He is," Evie says. "I killed him."

"Thank you," Jacob says. He trails off then, mumbling incoherently, and Evie turns to Arno.

"Help me get him out of here," she says.

"With pleasure," Arno says, and between the two of them it's a simple task to get him to his feet and moving. Well—moving might be a bit of a stretch. They have to drag Jacob when his trembling legs prove unable to support him. By the time they get to the street outside, Jacob is well and truly unconscious.

"Thank you for being there for him," Evie says, glancing past Jacob at Arno. He looks tired and drawn, and it strikes Evie suddenly how old they're all getting. She can feel it in her bones, especially now that she's come back to London. It's home, of course, but it's also damp and cold, and after the years she's spent in India that weather hits Evie hard. She knows she's getting old, and Jacob is certainly aging as well. Right now, he looks at least a decade older than he really is. Even Arno, who could be visiting from any point in his life, looks worn down and aged. Evie tries to force her attention back to the matter at hand.

"Of course I'm here," Arno says. "I'm visiting, I don't get to choose that."

"No," Evie says. "But I mean—I know Jacob is still in love with you. I know you don't love him."

Arno looks away.

"You didn't have to hold him like you did," Evie says. "You didn't have to let him cry on you."

"I think I did," Arno says. "He's… hurt and ill and upset. And m—maybe I don't love him but he's my friend. He's my friend and some bastard's spent months torturing him. I'm glad I could be there for him. I hope it helped."

"It did," Evie says. "I know it did."

Arno smiles, a wan little twitch of the lips, and vanishes abruptly. With him gone, Jacob's full weight falls on Evie's shoulders. She struggles a little, but adjusts. He's her brother. She's never going to let him fall.

They reach the street outside and Evie steals a carriage, then helps Jacob inside. He stirs a little, and opens his good eye. "Where are we going?" he asks.

"I don't know," Evie says. The Rooks are still outside of their control, the twins still aren't completely safe in London. Jacob is broken in ways that Evie doesn't entirely understand, and she doesn't know how to _fix_ him. All her life, she's resented cleaning up after Jacob, and now that she would give anything to be able to do that she can't. She doesn't even know where she'll find him a safe place to stay while he recovers.

"But you're not _going_?" Jacob insists. "Not going back to India and Henry?"

"No," Evie says. "No, Jacob, I promise. I will stay with you as long as you need me."

Again, there is a flash of a smile on Jacob's face. Fond, this time. Still too small. "I always need you," he says.

Tears prick at Evie's eyes, and she smiles herself. Small, and fond, and an exact copy of the one on Jacob's face. "And I always need you," she echoes.


	90. Chapter 90

Elena's in the backseat of the car, staring out the window and trying not to think about where they're going. She doesn't want to see him, but it's—she understands why it's necessary. Her grandfather, her biological grandfather, is about to die, and her dad says he wants to see them. Both of them. It's his dying wish, her dad says, and apparently that's supposed to entitle him to something.

"Desmond," her grandpa says from the front seat. Her real grandpa, the one that actually cares about her and her dad. He's driving them because Elena had flat out told them she won't be in any state to drive after whatever her grandfather wants to say, and her dad only has the one arm so he's not supposed to be driving anyway.

"Yea?" He's fiddling with his phone, not really doing anything with it, just flipping it on and off, turning it over in his hand.

"Are you sure you're going to be alright?"

"He's eighty years old," Elena's dad says. "What's he going to do?"

"That's not what I asked," her grandpa says, gently. "I asked if you're going to be alright."

"Sure," her dad says, and Elena doesn't think any of them are convinced.

"What about you, Elena?" her grandpa asks.

"I've been saying all day that I don't want to go," she says.

That seems to put a bit of life into her dad, at least. He stirs and turns around to look back at her. "He's dying," he tells her, like Elena hadn't known that already. Like they haven't been saying that all day, like it's supposed to  _ matter _ . "I know you don't want to go but sometimes you have to do things in life that you don't like."

Elena crosses her arms and slouches in her seat but nods. It's awful, but she's thinking that at least if he's dying she's not going to have to see him again after this.

The car goes quiet. There's only one obvious topic of conversation, and none of them likes it. So they spend the rest of the ride in silence. It's a pretty long drive, and the silence makes it longer. Elena wishes they were going in the other direction, driving  _ away _ .

But they're not, and finally they get there. It's not the kind of place Elena had expected—a nice looking building in a quiet town, new, clean—there are flowers planted in beds all over the front lawn, along with tall shade trees and carefully tended bushes.

"So this is where assassins go to die?" Elena asks.

"Not usually," her grandpa says, and Elena thinks he's probably in a position to know. She doesn't really want to think about that right now, though, there's enough awfulness about today already.

"He's the mentor," her dad says. He's staring at the building like he expects it to somehow attack him. "And he's sick. This is the brotherhood doing what they can to take care of him."

"Speaking of which," Elena's grandpa says. "I should be getting out of here."

"I'll call you when we're done," her dad says. "Thanks."

Elena looks around as they get out of the car. She should have seen it already, but now that she's looking she sees the half dozen assassins hanging around, looking just casual enough to draw her attention.

"They're guarding him?" Elena asks.

Her dad nods, tight and fast, and Elena doesn't ask any more questions. She can see he's scared, and that scares her. It also makes her angry—there's something about her grandfather that seems to take all the fight out of her dad, and Elena hates that. It's enough to splinter her own fear, just a little, and when they get into the lobby she steps forward before he can, asking after her grandfather and remembering to use the false name he's staying under. It helps to have something to do, to be able to look after her dad for once.

The woman behind the desk tells them to wait, because the patient they're asking after has restricted visiting due to poor health. Or—as Elena reads between the lines—the assassins here want to check up on anyone coming to visit their dying mentor. She looks back at her dad, who nods, and so they sit down to wait.

They wait for ten or fifteen minutes. It feels like hours, but eventually an elderly woman in smart clothes walks into the lobby. Elena is still trying to figure out if this is the person they've been waiting for, when her dad jumps to his feet. "Mom," he says, and he hugs her tight. Elena gets up more slowly, trying to take in the grandmother she's never met.

Except she has. Sort of. When she was in the animus, reliving her dad's memories. Just because she's not bleeding anymore, that doesn't mean she's forgotten what it was like to be her dad in the animus. She doesn't think she'll  _ ever  _ forget what it was like to be him, small and helpless and being kicked in the mud by William Miles.

There's a reason she really doesn't want to be here today.

But she remembers her grandmother was there as well, and she was nice, she helped. "Mom," Desmond says at last, pulling away a step. "This is my daughter, Elena."

"Hi," Elena says. Her grandmother gives her a long look of consideration, like she's sizing her up. Then she smiles.

"It's lovely to meet you, Elena."

"You too."

"Mom—" they both turn back to Elena's dad, who is frowning again. "Can we go in and see dad?"

"Are you sure you  want  to?"

Behind them, ignored for the moment, Elena smiles at the bitter note in her grandmother's voice. She'd been wondering how a nice woman like that could have ended up married to William Miles, but maybe there's some bad feelings there. As long as she's not on  _ his _ side, that's all Elena cares about.

"I don't want to," Elena's dad says. "But he's dying."

"That he is," she agrees. "Come on, I can take you to his room."

They walk down several hallways until they come to a mostly secluded hall. Elena's grandmother shows them to the room at the very end, then steps back. "I'll leave you two alone," she says. "One of the men on guard just alerted me there's a templar in the area, so I should really see about taking care of him—"

"No!" Elena blurts.

"I really don't think he's going to be a problem," her dad adds.

"Hmm." Elena's grandmother gives the two of them a look that says she might just know more than she's choosing to let on. "Well, if you say so." She gestures them toward the door again, and this time they go in.

The room is nice enough, Elena thinks. There's a lot of space, there's a large window with a nice view, there's a comfortable bed that looks too large for the shrunken form of William Miles lying on it. But there's nothing personal here. No cards from friends, no flowers, nothing that shows this is a man with someone that cares about him. Possibly for good reason.

He looks up at them, and his wrinkled face is nothing like the stern man from Elena's early childhood memories. "Desmond," he says. His eyes drift sideways to Elena's face, and she can't keep from flinching. "Elena."

"William." Elena stays back, by the door, while her dad walks over to the chair next to the bed. "I heard you wanted to see us."

"I wanted to tell you something," he says. "Ask. Beg, maybe, if I have to." He takes a deep breath. "I'm going to die soon," he says. "And I've been in this bed, for weeks, thinking. Mostly about all the mistakes I've made in my life—I'm sure you'd be the first to tell me just how many there are, just how… unforgivable. But that's exactly why I wanted you here, Desmond. I don't deserve your forgiveness for the way I've treated you in the past, but I…" there are tears on his face, and his thin frame twists in some kind of intense emotion. His voice comes out as a hoarse whisper. "I don't want to die without making amends. Look around, look—" he gestures weakly at the bare, empty room. "This is the sum of everything I have done in my life.  _ Nothing _ . You are the only thing I have made in my life that is worth leaving behind. You are my legacy, you are—you're my son. Not  _ his  _ son, not…" he closes his eyes, mumbles incoherently for several moments, obviously distraught.

"D—" Elena's father swallows, hard, and leans forward to put his hand on William's arm. "Dad. I forgive you."

The old man relaxes on the bed, mumbling in relief and gratitude. Elena is praying that's it, that they'll be able to leave now. But then her dad stumbles to his feet, flees the room like he can't stand to be there a moment later, mouth pursed like he's just said something awful. Elena wants to stop him as he brushes past her, she wants to ask why he'd said that, why he'd  _ forgiven  _ the man he'd disowned a decade and a half ago. But he doesn't really look like he wants to talk, he looks so, so hurt, and Elena thinks she knows what he'd say anyway. Because William is dying, he somehow deserves to hear whatever he wants, even if it's not true.

And then it's just her and William in the room, and Elena advances on the bed on legs that shake. He's looking at her and it's so  _ hard  _ not to flash back to that day in the animus, it's so hard not to remember the kinds of things this man had done to her father. It's not fair that William had done the things he'd done to Elena's father, and then managed to get the words  _ I forgive you  _ out of him before dying.

"Elena," William says, as she settles onto the chair her father had so recently vacated. "I'm glad you came, too."

"I didn't want to," Elena tells him.

"I believe it," William says. "Your father's done everything he could to turn you against me from the moment he met you. He—"

"I can't believe you!" Elena interrupts. "He just forgave you, and you—you didn't  _ deserve  _ that forgiveness."

"He's been telling you lies about me—"

Elena talks over him, she's mad, she's pissed almost beyond reason, and somewhere beyond that she's terrified. She can't stand to listen to him anymore so she shouts at him instead, drowning out whatever he's trying to say. "He doesn't tell me anything about you, okay? When I was a kid and you lived with us, he told me to be careful around you. He said you were mean and that was all. That's all he's  _ ever  _ told me about you. No one talks about you, no one even mentions your name."

That shuts him up, and he looks up at her with an unreadable expression but no words. Elena keeps going.

"But I know about you anyway," she says. "I've been in an animus, I saw what you did to him, I  _ felt  _ it. I felt you break my dad into pieces, and you're absolutely right, that was unforgivable. I don't know why he forgave you—" or  _ said _ he did. Elena wants to tell William that the forgiveness had almost certainly been false, a gift to a dying man that doesn't deserve it. But she doesn't know how much it had cost her dad to say that, so Elena's not going to take it away. "I don't know why he forgave you," she says again. "But he  _ shouldn't  _ have."

"Elena—"

"You were a monster to him," Elena says. She closes her eyes and remembers what she'd seen in the animus, clear as day. The mud, the fear, the shame. The bleeding effect is gone but Elena will never lose that memory, she will never lose that little piece of her father, five years old and terrified. "He has a new dad now, a  _ better  _ one than you. Maybe that's why he can say what he said to you today. But there was a time in his life when you were every bad thing in the world to him, and that's why  _ I _ can't forgive you."

She leaves, almost running, and when she's out in the hallway she almost runs into her dad.

"Oh," Elena says. She looks at him, and at her grandmother, and wilts a little. "Did you—you didn't hear that, did you?"

Her dad smiles and puts his hand on her shoulder, and squeezes it in a way that means  _ thank you _ .

"He hasn't always been a good man," her grandmother says, and Elena can't tell if she approves or not. "But he hasn't always been a bad one, either."

"I'm sorry," Elena says. "But you were there when dad was a kid, you  _ saw  _ what happened to him—"

"I did," her grandmother says. "Maybe if I had said something back then like what you said today, things would have ended differently."

"It's okay, mom," Elena's dad says. "You were always great." He turns to Elena, suddenly grinning. "She made that stuffed lion I gave you when you were a kid."

Elena gasps and smiles too. "You made Kitty?" She still sleeps with the lion sometimes, when she's having a bad day. It's in amazingly good shape, considering everything it's been through. A little rough around the edges, but thoroughly loved.

It fits right in at home.

They exchange small talk for a little while, then Elena leaves with her dad. They walk to the parking lot and hang out, waiting for Elena's grandpa to show up with the car. After a minute or two, her dad says, "Elena?"

"Dad?"

He hesitates. "I appreciate what you said to William. I really, really did, and I think if five year old me had been in the room right then, that little speech would have made you his hero."

"Thanks," Elena says. "But…?"

"But I didn't forgive him for  _ him _ ," her dad says. "I forgave him for me. I want to be able to move on. I don't know… I mean, I don't know exactly what you saw in the animus." They don't talk about it more than they absolutely have to. "But whatever horrible parts of my life you saw, I don't want them hanging over your head the way he's been hanging over me. I'm not saying you have to forgive him today. It took me long enough to get the words out. But—just think about it, okay?"

"Okay," Elena says. But she's not quite ready yet.


	91. Chapter 91

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted two chapters in tonight, in case you missed the one before this. :)

It's the middle of the night, and Jacob is half awake in his compartment, wishing desperately that he could just get back to sleep. He'd been in the middle of a dirty, dirty dream about himself and Arno that he'd give almost anything to go back to. But the train had hit a turn going just a little too fast, and startled Jacob awake. Now he's too worked up to sleep, he's horny and tense and he wants Arno.   
  
Instead, he finds Edward.    
  
The visit catches him by surprise—suddenly he's in the future, in Edward's bed, and he just needs someone right now. A warm body, that's all. Not a replacement for Arno because no one could replace Arno, but someone to just fill the space for a little while. Jacob shifts until he's on top of Edward, practically straddling him. There's not a lot of space on the bed, and he doesn't think Edward will mind.   
  
He leans down and shakes Edward—gently, because he might not be thinking straight but he still knows better than to startle a sleeping assassin awake. When Edward's eyes blink gradually open, Jacob says, "You offered to let me practice kissing on you once. Is the offer still open, or…?" His voice is low and hoarse, scratchy and desperate and tight. Jacob almost doesn't recognize himself.   
  
Edward is clearly still mostly asleep, but he's still awake enough to pull Jacob down on top of him and kiss him enthusiastically. It's not Arno, it's rough and sloppy but Edward's hands are in all the right places and oh God his tongue—   
  
"Hey!"   
  
The light switches on and Jacob pushes himself up off Edward—both of them turn to the door to see Ezio standing there, arms crossed, looking hugely disapproving.   
  
"Ezio," Jacob says weakly. He's thinking no, that's not fair, they can't stop now…   
  
"Why wasn't I invited?" Ezio demands.   
  
"What?” Jacob asks.    
  
“You left,” Edward says vaguely.    
  
“I was in the bathroom,” Ezio says. “I was gone for two minutes and when I come back, Edward, you're awake—which is odd enough, frankly, it's not even 6:00 yet—and making out with Jacob!”   
  
Half hidden by the blankets, Edward moves his hand against Jacob’s crotch. It hits him hard, he can't stop himself from shuddering in pleasure and pressing himself closer to Edward. “We're going a bit farther than that, hopefully,” Edward says.    
  
“Can I join?” Ezio asks. He sounds almost pleading, but doesn't actually move toward the bed. Some part of Jacob, whatever is left of the part of him that would once have been uncomfortable sleeping with a man, is glad Ezio is keeping his distance. Maybe he's not ready for that, he doesn't know what he would have done if Ezio just forced himself into the bed.   
  
“I'm game,” Edward says eagerly. “Jacob?”   
  
Jacob hesitates. “All three of us?” he asks. “How does that work?”   
  
“No idea,” Edward says. “Never tried it. I'm willing to find out, though.”   
  
Ezio smirks. It doesn't look unkind, though, the way it sits on his face. “I can show you,” he says. “I'm a very good teacher.”   
  
Jacob thinks of his first (only) kiss with Ezio. He really had been rather good, hadn't he? Slowly, Jacob nods. He's not sure what he's getting himself into, but he can't pretend he's not excited by the prospect of finding out. Something in his stomach has gone hot and tense, and then Ezio slides into bed so that Jacob is between him and Edward on the tiny bed. They're so close Jacob keeps brushing up against them, and then Ezio makes good on his word, he starts showing Jacob exactly what three men can do to one another in bed, and Jacob throws himself enthusiastically into the experience.   
  
It's amazing. They're both amazing—Ezio keeps teasing, keeps giving Jacob just enough to want more and then pulling away so that Jacob jerks after him, groaning in need. On his other side, Edward is doing the same, straining across Jacob to reach Ezio. But at the same time, every chance he gets he's touching Jacob, kissing him, messy and uncontrolled but good. Jacob keeps turning between the two of them, his brain is just overwhelmed with the feel of both of them at once until he can't think straight. He vaguely hopes that they're getting something from him but honestly he has no idea what he's doing.   
  
The bed is too small. Ezio goes tumbling off it first, Jacob and Edward following, and they just keep going there on the floor, tangled up with each other and with the sheets they've dragged down with them. They're all clothed at the beginning, although thankfully only in nightclothes. Jacob has enough problems pulling those off with Edward and Ezio against him, pulling him back into the mess they've made. He doesn't know what he'd have done if he'd been wearing his robes and all the layers that go with them. Melted or exploded, probably, if the desperate, impatient feeling in his gut is anything to go by.    
  
They keep at it for a while. Jacob has no idea how long it is, he's not exactly thinking about keeping track of time. It just keeps getting better and better, and Jacob is crying out in pleasure, almost screaming, there's not a rational thought in his head, just a base, primal need for the things he's feeling right now.    
  
And then he hears someone say “Jacob?”   
  
And the voice is quiet, confused, almost shaking.   
  
And Jacob comes crashing back down to Earth almost at once, because that's Arno’s voice. He hurls himself away from the other two, shaking off their reaching hands, ignoring their moaning protests. He stands up, trembling a little, and looks at Arno where he's standing on the other end of the room.    
  
“What…” Arno is very obviously trying to keep his voice casual. It doesn't work at all, he sounds uncomfortable and looks even less happy. “What are you doing?”   
  
Jacob is naked, his feet tangled in discarded sheets, standing in front of two other naked men, who haven't completely managed to pull themselves off each other yet. His neck and shoulders are  covered in the careless hickeys Edward had left behind, his whole body is still wrapped in the memory of Ezio’s touch. Suddenly, Jacob feels dirty. Not for what he'd been doing, exactly, but for who he'd been doing it with. Not Arno.    
  
And it's not like Arno looks jealous. He's certainly made it clear enough that he doesn't… That he will never—   
  
Well. Whatever the truth of their relationship, it doesn't stop Jacob from feeling like he's betrayed Arno by lying with Ezio and Edward. And is he imagining it, or is there just a tinge of hurt on his face?   
  
“I'm sorry,” Jacob says. “Arno—“   
  
“Doesn't matter to me,” Arno says, very, very quickly.    
  
It matters to Jacob.    
  
Behind him, Ezio has torn himself away from Edward long enough to pull his pants back on and stand up. “Come on,” he says to Arno, not unkindly. “Jacob is visiting Edward. I think you're visiting me. We'll go outside for a minute.”   
  
Arno nods, clearly grateful, and follows Ezio out as he leaves. Edward stays right where he is, and so Jacob does as well, of course. But he turns away from Edward, shame rising up to choke him, and gets dressed without saying a word. 


	92. Chapter 92

"I know that look," Evie says when Arno arrives in the back room of Henry’s shop. She’s trying to get some business done, but by the look on Arno’s face and the twitchy motion of his hands, that isn’t going to happen anytime soon. "What did Jacob do this time?"

"I… shouldn't say," Arno says. But he's looking at her like he's begging her to just  _ know _ , like he can't stand to keep whatever it is inside his head any longer. "It's kind of private," he says. "I wasn't supposed to even know about it, I just… showed up and saw. You know how visiting is."

Evie nods, but she also gestures for Arno to sit next to her. He hesitates, but takes the seat. "Arno," she says. "I understand that you're trying to protect my brother. It's very noble of you. But the thing is, Jacob hurts people. He doesn't mean to, he has good intentions, but he hurts them anyway."

Arno nods with miserable agreement before he seems to catch himself. He stops abruptly.

"If he's hurt you somehow, then I'm exactly the person you need to talk to. Trust me, I've been cleaning up after his messes since we were kids."

"But…" Arno still looks torn, but the idea of sharing whatever burden Jacob has put on his shoulders is clearly an attractive one. "Is this pre-Roth or post-Roth on your timeline?" he asks.

Evie nods. "I know Jacob is bisexual, if that's what you're asking." Well, she suspects, anyway. She'd picked up the term on a visit to Ezio, where the other assassin had gone on a lengthy and uninterruptable (because he wouldn't let her interrupt, not because it was so interesting) tangent about his own sexuality. He had eventually settled on 'uncategorizable,' and seemed incredibly proud of that fact. So Evie's understanding of what bisexual actually means is a little bit muddy, thanks to Ezio's less than complete explanation, but she thinks it fits her brother pretty well.

"Do you also know he's in love with me?" Arno asks, looking at the floor.

"Arno," Evie says. "I knew that a  _ long  _ time before Roth."

Arno takes a deep breath. "Fine," he says. "I don't really think Ezio or Edward would mind either, so—"

"Wait," Evie interrupts. "What do they have to do with this?"

"I saw them," Arno mutters. "In bed together. Not even in bed, actually, they were on the floor.”

Evie stares at him. “We're talking about  _ my  _ Jacob, aren't we? I mean…” Arno is nodding, and Evie feels her eyebrows crawling their way up her forehead in surprise. There's a difference between liking men and throwing oneself into bed with two of them at once. “Really?” she asks. “I mean… With those two?”

Arno nods. “Definitely. I mean, I definitely saw…” He gestures vaguely. “All of Jacob, you know?”

“Oh.”

“And Jacob, he—I mean, he was…"

"He was what?" Evie asks.

"He was enjoying it," Arno says. "All this time I thought…" he trails off, then flicks his gaze from the floor up to Evie. "I feel so stupid," he says. "He always acts like he's so in love with me, but he'll sleep with just anyone, apparently. And it's not—look, maybe it's stupid, I don't even know how I feel about  _ him _ , but he made me feel special." His gaze flickers away from Evie's face and then drops again. "I liked feeling special, I like the attention. I don't know. It's selfish."

"No," Evie says. "It's very natural. Jacob is a lot of things, but when he wants to, he can make you feel like you're the center of the world."

"So you get it," Arno says, sounding relieved.

"He's my brother," Evie says. "And he irritates me, he drives me absolutely crazy, but then sometimes he'll just… say something, or do something, and I know how important I am to him." She shrugs. "It's a good feeling."

"But you're  _ actually  _ important to him," Arno says. "He doesn't care about me any more than… than any other man."

"That is absolutely untrue," Evie says. "Look, Arno. Sleeping with someone is not the same as being in love with them. I don't know why Jacob decided to sleep with those two. I very rarely understand why Jacob does anything. But he cares about you, Arno, he cares about you  _ so  _ much."

Arno shakes his head, squeezing his eyes shut. "No," he says. "No, I was stupid. I made a mistake, believing Jacob and his… his flattery." He stands up. "I'm done, okay? We're just friends, that's it."

"Arno—"

He laughs bitterly. "I was starting to think maybe I felt… something for him. You know? Stupid. So, so stupid…"

"Arno…"

"I was just fooling myself," Arno says. "I see that now. I liked how he looked at me, how he made me feel. Not him. He's just a friend. A stupid, stupid friend that does stupid things but I knew that already, didn't I?"

"No—well, yes, he can be a bit stupid. But Arno, if you care for him don't let Jacob ruin that."

"I  _ don't _ care for him like that," Arno says. "Not at all. I was wrong."

And just like that he's gone. Evie watches the empty space where he had been a moment ago, then stands to leave the room. She just needs a change in scenery, that's all. But—

Jacob's waiting just outside. He looks like he's been crying. No, actually he looks like he's  _ still  _ crying. Evie goes to him at once, and holds him until he stops shaking and goes still in her arms.

"I just didn't want to be alone anymore," he whispers, as Evie strokes his hair and holds him closer. "I just wanted to be with someone, and it couldn't be Arno, I can't—" He hiccups, trying to get his breathing under control. "I can't do anything to make Arno love me, I tried and tried and I just wanted to be with  _ someone _ . And then Edward was there, and he doesn't care, you know? I thought it could be just sex, it didn't have to be anything else, he wouldn't expect anything out of me. And then Ezio walked in and I mean he's  _ Ezio _ . And it wasn't Arno but it was nice until…"

Evie sighs. "Until Arno showed up?"

He nods against her shoulder. "And his face, Evie, you should have seen it. You should have seen it…"

"Come on," Evie says gently. "Let's get home."

"I don't want to go home," Jacob says. "I want Arno."

"I know," Evie says. She manages to get him moving, slowly, in the right direction. "But you can't have Arno."

He whimpers quietly against her, and Evie gives him a quick kiss on the top of the head, the way their grandmother used to when they were very small. “If it helps,” she says. “I don’t think he would have been so hurt if he didn’t care for you on some level.”

But Jacob shakes his head. “No,” he says. “I’d rather live with him not caring than with knowing I hurt him.”

“Oh,  _ Jacob _ ,” Evie says.


	93. Chapter 93

Arno's next visit with Jacob is also Jacob's next visit with Arno. It's easy to tell, Arno thinks as he looks at Jacob's dull eyes and distant frown. Jacob's one night with Edward and Ezio must have been very recent for him as well.

A thought hits Arno out of the blue. What if it hadn't been just one night? What if there had been more nights before then? What if there had been more nights _after_? Or what if there had been other men, besides Ezio and Edward? God, and Arno had been so ready to let Jacob convince him he's special. Stupid, stupid…

"What's the matter with you?" Arno asks when Jacob doesn't say anything. His voice is angrier than he'd expected, and Arno's surprised at how good it feels. "I figured you'd be proud—two master assassins at once. Huge accomplishment. Don't you want to  _ brag _ , don't you want to tell me how great it was?"

"No," Jacob whispers.

"You don't want to brag about something you've done?"

"No."

"Well, I guess there's a first time for everything."

"Why would I brag?" Jacob bursts out.  _ "Why _ , Arno? Why would I be proud of myself? I hurt you, Arno, and I never wanted that."

"You didn't hurt me," Arno says, turning away.

"You sound hurt," Jacob says. "You look hurt."

"If I'm hurt it's only because I realized I'd let you trick me into thinking you were in love with me."

"God, Arno." Jacob looks horrified. "Be angry with me for anything else but don't ever doubt that I love you."

Arno shakes his head. "Jacob, you're a child playing at being an adult. I never should have been fooled by any of the shit that comes out of your mouth. Come on. I don't even think you're mature enough to recognize love if you felt it."

There's a moment where Arno and Jacob just look at each other. Then Jacob says, "You weren't this angry when I killed you."

Arno opens his mouth. Closes it. He doesn't have an answer for that. It's… true, he just doesn't understand why.

"I'm sorry," Jacob says.

"You're what?"

"I'm  _ sorry _ ," Jacob repeats. "I'm apologizing."

"You don't apologize," Arno says. "You just don't."

"So… you don't forgive me?" Jacob asks. "Tell me what I have to do, Arno, I swear I'll do it."

There's something in his eyes that freezes Arno in place. He looks desperate, for forgiveness, for  _ Arno _ . It's that same attention Arno has come to depend on from Jacob, that care he keeps reminding himself isn't real, can't be real, because…

Because Arno keeps flashing back to that moment in his mind. He keeps seeing Jacob's face, flushed but lit up with excitement, looking at Edward and Ezio like nothing else even matters. And Arno doesn't like how he'd felt in that moment. Jealous and stupid and _ confused _ . Because he's been doing his best to take Evie's advice, try and figure out how he feels about Jacob. But what's the point if he's going to do things  _ like _ that with just anyone?

"Listen," Arno says. "You were the best part of visiting for me. At the beginning I was confused, I was scared, and then you came along and—well, actually you made everything even more confusing. But you made it fun, too."

"I'm hearing a lot of past tense in that," Jacob says, far more softly than what Arno is used to hearing from him.

"Yea, well, that's because you decided you'd fallen in love with me," Arno says. "And I could deal with that until Edward and Ezio but now—look, Jacob, I just want my friend back. Stop telling me you love me, stop touching me, stop…" Jacob's eyes are wide and sad on him. "Stop looking at me like that."

"You can't ask me not to be in love with you," Jacob says. "I don't know how to stop."

"Fine," Arno says. He's not going to sit here and argue love with Jacob. "I just don't want to hear about it. Can you live with that?"

"More easily than I can live without you," Jacob says.

Arno raises his eyebrows.

Jacob frowns. "Right," he says. "That's the kind of thing I'm not supposed to say anymore, isn't it?

"It is."

"Well then I guess what I mean is yes," Jacob says. "Yes, I still want to be your friend, and yes we're going to be visiting each other for the rest of our lives, so I can live with that."

"Good," Arno says. He doesn't exactly believe that this is going to stick. Besides, with visiting there will always be younger Jacobs to deal with, Jacobs from before today that haven't agreed to this deal yet. But Arno just needs room to  _ breathe _ , just for a little while. "Thank you, Jacob."

Jacob grins a little and reaches a hand out to grasp Arno's arm. Then he remembers, and the grin slips, and he drops his arm back to his side. He rubs at it with his other hand, trying to pass the gesture off as casual. Then he vanishes, visit over.

Arno looks down at the ground where Jacob had been standing. Elise's grave. Arno's been coming here a lot, lately. Seeing Jacob with Edward and Ezio had sent Arno's world just… just tilting on its axis, and visiting Elise is the only method he's been able to figure out that helps to ground him.

Now he sits down on the grave, back pressed against the headstone, and aches for Elise. "I did okay, didn't I?" he asks softly. "I didn't mess things up?"

There's no answer from the silent stone. There never is.


	94. Chapter 94

Arno is drunk, he is—God, he is really, really drunk. And miserable. He doesn't know much right now, but he knows that. He just… he wants to go home. He wants to go back to being a child, playing on the de la Serre estate with Elise, when the two of them were happy.

But the estate has been looted, it's not home anymore, and Arno feels so _lost_. He needs another drink, maybe that will help. He staggers to his feet, stumbling as the world spins around him, and goes searching for a bottle. Instead he finds Altair, and Arno laughs and then hiccups. "What're you doing here?" he asks. "Come for a drink?"

"No," Altair says. "Arno, what are you doing? This is not how I would expect an assassin of your caliber to behave."

"'s funny," Arno says. "Ha ha ha."

"What's funny?" Altair asks. His voice is all stiff, and he's clearly not happy about dropping in on Arno right now. Well, he'll just have to live with it, because Arno isn't happy, full stop, and he's probably never going to be happy again."

"You called me an assassin," Arno says. "But I'm not. I got kicked out. Council kicked me out." He spreads his arms to show off the ratty, civilian clothing that has replaced his assassin's robes, and loses his balance. When he's fallen hard to the floor and the world just won't stop reeling, Arno gives up and just lies flat on his back. "I dunno what to do," he says. "I got kicked out for picking my own targets instead of killing when the council told me to. But I was only trying to help, because it—it's _my_ fault Elise's father is dead, and I have to fix it. But Elise is angry with me too, because I said I cared more about her living than her getting her revenge, but…" Whoops, tears. "But I don't think that's a _bad_ thing."

Altair sits down beside him, and moves his hand over Arno's sweaty forehead, brushing away the hair that's stuck there. It's an unexpected gesture of kindness, especially coming from Altair, specifically. But it's—it's just… it feels like a very, very long time since someone was just _kind_ to him, without strings, without wanting something. Arno just can't stop crying. "I don't know how it all went wrong," he says. "But ever since Monsieur de la Serre died—everything's just gotten worse and worse."

"I'm sure that's not true," Altair says. "There must be something good in your life."

Arno shakes his head no. "You know I killed him?" he asks. "Or it was my fault, anyway. I'm in love with his daughter and if I'd done something differently that day, he would still be alive, and Elise wouldn't have blamed me, I wouldn't have been arrested or met Bellec or become an assassin, I wouldn't have gone out and—and _killed_ people to get revenge because I wouldn't need revenge, I wouldn't be this person I don't even recognize—"

"Arno, stop," Altair says. "Don't punish yourself like this."

"But it's my fault."

"That's a conversation for another time," Altair says. Like it's just that easy to put it aside. "It doesn't matter if it's your fault or not, you…listen. I know, Arno. I know what you are going through."

"How?" Arno asks.

"I…" Altair heaves a sigh. "I had a friend. Malik. And he had a brother. Kadar. And one day, when I was young, and… and _arrogant_ , the three of us were on a mission together. I did absolutely everything wrong, and Kadar died."

"And you blamed yourself?"

"Of course. This morning, when I woke up, it was the twenty first century. Kadar would have been dead for centuries even if we never went on the mission that day. But when I woke up, just for a second I thought, what if I had acted differently? I still wonder. It still hurts."

That's a long time. And Arno had been hoping the hurt would go away. "Oh," he mumbles. He half sits up, squinting around blearily. "I need a _drink_."

"No," Arno says firmly. "Maybe I'm saying this badly. I don't share Kadar easily. But the point is that I know it hurts. I know, Arno. I know. But you are a good man. A good assassin, whatever your council says. And all this, it will not make anything better."

"It makes me feel better," Arno says. "It doesn't hurt so much."

"That's a lie," Altair says.

"I guess," Arno says. "But what else am I supposed to do?"

Altair doesn't answer. But he also doesn't leave. He stays at Arno's side, letting Arno shake with silent tears, letting him mourn the life he's lost. And he doesn't even know _which_ life he's grieving for. The life of an assassin that had ended when the council kicked him out, or the life of an innocent that had ended when Elise's father died. Or maybe he's grieving for the life he'd had as a child before some _bastard_ came and killed his father.

"Did your friend forgive you?" Arno asks, after what feels like hours.

"Hmm?" Altair says.

"Your friend," Arno repeats. "Malik. Did he forgive you for Kadar?"

"Eventually," Altair says.

"Good," Arno says. He sniffs and wipes his face. "Maybe… Elise might forgive me. Someday."

"Maybe," Altair says, and Arno feels just a little bit of hope.


	95. Chapter 95

It's been a long day. A hard day. It shouldn't be, not really, because nothing at all unusual had happened. It's just that there are some days when the reality of it, of being a prisoner with no possible escape in sight, hits her very hard. There are days when she wants to scream or sob, and those days are bad, but the days that surpass that, the days when Jenny goes quiet and can't find her voice no matter how hard she tries, those days are worse.

Today is one of those days.

When Jenny is finally allowed to sleep, she doesn't. She can't. She wraps herself in silence and darkness and tries to pretend nothing else in the world exists. Not her captors, not this prison, not the Earth or the stars or the sun.

She imagines it, halfway around the world somewhere, inching its way toward the horizon. At dawn she'll be woken again, and it will be time for another day, just like all the others…

Jenny holds her breath, and tries to pretend that even she doesn't exist.

Then suddenly she's standing, somewhere bright, and for a second Jenny just stands there, swaying a fraction and blinking stupidly. She is… oh. Right. She's _there_.

It's a small room, scarcely more than a closet. Just big enough for the little plastic bin…thing… that Elena had lived in for several months after she was born. It doesn't look right, a tiny baby like this, shoved into a corner and forgotten. She's awake, squirming in her little bin, not exactly crying but making this high, thin, breathy noise like she _wants_ to.

Jenny reaches down and picks up Elena—the baby responds by scrunching up her face in abject misery and arching her back to escape the apparent horror of being touched by another human being. Jenny shakes her head and doesn't let go. There are days, selfish days, when Jenny hates her visitors for being free when she is not. But right now—Elena is _not_ free. She's as trapped as Jenny is.

Jenny presses Elena close, shaking her head and rocking back and forth, until Elena gives up her fighting and presses cautiously against Jenny. She grabs a handful of Jenny's clothes in one tiny fist and then looks up at her. Something sparks in her eyes, and Jenny smiles. It's okay, Elena, it's okay. It's—well, it's not okay what they're doing to you. It's not okay that they keep you locked up. It's not okay that they've got you terrified of other people. It's not okay that you're a baby that doesn't know what it's like to be held by someone that loves you, that you don't cry because you know it won't do any good.

Jenny doesn't say any of that, of course. Elena isn't the only one here that's gotten used to the silence. But she _holds_ her. Just holds her, until Elena sighs and rests her head against Jenny's chest. Her eyes slide closed, and when she falls asleep she's smiling.

And then the visit ends, and Jenny is alone again in her silence and her darkness. Her arms feel empty, suddenly, she feels so, so alone. She covers her face and closes her eyes and cries in absolute silence until dawn.


	96. Chapter 96

"I'm getting used to visiting," Jacob brags.

"No you're not," Evie says. "Stop it, Jacob."

 "I am!" Jacob says. "It's fun."

"Fun for you, maybe," Evie says. "I'm just sick of being told to run along and fall in love with Mr. Green."

Jacob grins at her. "Well, why _shouldn't_ you fall in love with him?" he asks.

Honestly—it's like he has absolutely no sense of self-preservation whatsoever. Evie glares at her brother and says, in the absolute frostiest tone that she can manage, "Because I do not like being _told_ who to fall in love with. Because it is none of their business what I do with my life, or who I do it with."

"Sure, yea," Jacob says. "Whatever. But come on, Evie, it's not exactly like you've got men lining up to speak with you. And Greenie keeps making these moon eyes at you—" Jacob opens his eyes as wide as they'll go to illustrate this, then smirks at her. "Besides, you're the one filling her journal with the name Henry."

Evie shivers as a chill races its way up her spine. Her journal is not full of Mr. Green's name any longer—she'd torn out the pages in question and thrown them in the fire at her first opportunity. But she can't burn the memory away quite so easily. "It's not relevant," she says.

"See—" Jacob makes a big show of shaking his head in disapproval. "You say things like that, and that's how I know you've never been with a man."

"What does that have to do with—Jacob, that's none of your _business_."

"Bet you've never even kissed a boy," Jacob says.

"I _have_ ," Evie insists. "The baker's boy, when we were fourteen."

"Yea, but he smelled like cabbage," Jacob says dismissively. "He didn't count. And anyway, that was—what, six years ago?"

"Shut up, Jacob."

"I bet you couldn't get a kiss if you wanted one."

"I said, shut up!"

Jacob purses his lips like he's kissing and makes a wet sort of smacking noise. Evie narrows her eyes and storms away. There are times when she finds her brother absolutely insufferable, possibly the worst person in the entire world. They're in London to track the Pieces of Eden, not for these endless discussions about who she should be in love with. It's so... childish. Immature. Absolutely typical for Jacob, in other words.

It's bad enough from these visitors, bad enough that her own hand seems to have taken their side in scrawling Mr. Green's name over and over in her journal, but coming from Jacob it's just the worst of all.

Besides, he's entirely wrong. Evie is sure she _could_ kiss someone. If she wanted to. If she tried. If she wasn't always so busy with more important business. And if she did kiss someone, it wouldn't be Mr. Green anyway. Not because she doesn't like him, because Henry is...kind, and there is something special—

No, _no,_ there is nothing special about him, and Evie cannot be in love with him because that would be admitting defeat. It would be letting her visitors dictate her life.

And just like that, without any warning, Evie walks out of London and into Versailles. That means…Arno, as none of the others are from France. Not as far as Evie is aware, anyway. She supposes there might still be visitors she has yet to meet. But—no, there is Arno, and Evie feels relieved as he looks up and waves at her.

"Hello," she says, coming over to speak with him. Arno is one of the visitors she feels most comfortable with, because he barely knows Mr. Green, and does not _care_ what Evie does with him. But there's always a bit of uncertainty, when Evie visits Arno. She's met him half a dozen times or so, and does not entirely understand enough about the way visiting works to be able to piece together his life. She knows that while he is in Versailles he is happy, perhaps a bit reckless and irresponsible but still friendly. Later in his life, when he is in Paris, he turns moody and thoughtful and grim, and Evie does not yet feel she knows Arno well enough to ask what the reason for the change had been.

"Hello, Evie," Arno says. His voice is polite enough, with just a hint of friendliness. That's good. Evie had drawn a blade on Arno when they first met (not on purpose, of course, she hadn't known him) and it had made for a few awkward visits. This seems to be late enough for Arno to have moved past their earlier misunderstanding. "Care to join me?"

"Of course," Evie says, falling into step beside him as he starts moving again. "It's not as though visiting leaves me much choice _but_ to follow you."

Arno shrugs. "I guess not," he agrees.

"Where are you going?"

"Just for a drink or two," Arno says. "Maybe a game of cards, some time with a girl if I'm lucky—" he stops and blushes just a little. "Although I guess I wouldn't be very comfortable with another girl while you're here. I wouldn't want you to feel like you were stuck being my third wheel."

"I appreciate it," Evie says. "I'm sorry I had to disturb your evening."

"That's alright," Arno says. "You're not disturbing anything." But then he sort of glances sideways at her, and says, "I don't suppose you'd want to…"

"Want to what?" Evie asks.

"Well it's just—I know we're going to spend the evening together, since you can't exactly leave, but you wouldn't want to spend it _together_ together, would you?"

The no is already resting on Evie's tongue when she stops and actually considers her answer. Why not? Arno is nice enough. He's not Mr. Green. And after her argument with Jacob and his stubborn insistence that she wouldn't even be able to get someone to kiss her if she tried—well, why not? Just for a night, just to have a little bit of fun, as much as they can manage while Evie is invisible to everyone else. And maybe the next time Jacob starts on her for never having kissed anyone (as if it's his place to criticize), she can say 'well yes, actually, I've kissed Arno.' Although come to think of it, Evie isn't sure Jacob has met Arno since that first time when Evie almost stabbed him. And as Arno hadn't made much of an impression then, Jacob might not be all that impressed.

"Alright," Evie says. "Why not?"

Maybe it won't impress Jacob. More than likely, it won't make her other visitors stop talking about Mr. Green. But maybe it's alright if she just has this evening for herself, and her own enjoyment.

And that is how she ends up in a tavern with Arno, first in conversation, and then in their cups, and then—when both of them are just a little flushed—in the alley behind the tavern, kissing. It's nice, and Evie has to admit a little thrill of pleasure at the secret, illicit fun of this kiss. This is not what she does. This is what Jacob does. But there is literally no one in the world that can see Evie right now, no one but Arno, and—

"I'm in love with someone," Arno tells her, pulling back just a little.

"Then why are you kissing me?" Evie asks.

Arno shrugs one shoulder. "She's far away," he says, voice wistful. "And there's a difference between kissing the woman you love and kissing a woman for fun, and I just thought I should say something in case this got weird."

"Because you're kissing me, but you're not in love with me?" Evie asks, eyes dancing with laughter.

"Well—yes."

"That's alright," Evie assures him, with a measure of pride. "I'm not in love with anyone, and for once in my life I just want..."

She doesn't know what she wants, and knows even less how to say it. Luckily, there are other things to do with her mouth, and when she kisses Arno it makes a lot more sense than any words she could have said.

And then, so suddenly it knocks all the air out of Evie's lungs, there's a hand on her shoulder shoving her away, hard. Evie stumbles and hits the wall of the tavern, but she is an assassin and she recovers quickly. But when she is on her feet again, blade raised, it is not an enemy she sees standing between herself and Arno, but Jacob.

He must be visiting Arno, Evie thinks numbly. From—somewhere in the future. Ten, fifteen years maybe. He looks different, older. Angry.

"What are you doing?" Jacob demands. "Evie, _what are you doing_?"

"How dare you?" Evie says. "This is my life, and if I want to kiss Arno I will, and the only person—"

"No," Jacob mumbles, shaking his head. "No, no, no—"

Evie raises her voice. "The _only_ person that gets to have an opinion on that is Arno—"

"Are you _trying_ to hurt me?" Jacob asks.

"Why do you care?" Evie shouts. "You're just like everyone else, trying to dictate who I'm allowed to love!"

Jacob makes a strangled noise of deep frustration and turns away from her. When he speaks, Evie swears he sounds like he's crying. But why should he be? "You are… _so_ young," he says.

"Old enough to make my own decisions," Evie says.

"But if you knew," Jacob says. "About all the hurt we're going to go through, all three of us, you wouldn't be here, with Arno, doing—that."

"Kissing?" Evie asks. Jacob flinches. "That's all it was, Jacob. And it was your idea, anyway."

"What? I would _never_ have—"

"You're the one that was mocking me over never being kissed," Evie says. "You can't have it both ways."

Jacob turns to look at Evie, and she gets a half second's glimpse of the way his face has crumpled oddly before her visit ends and sends her back to her own time. She thinks of Arno, left alone with an angry Jacob, and winces in sympathy. But there's nothing she can do now but hope for the best, so Evie heaves a sigh and continues on her way.

-//-

When Evie has gone, Arno crosses his arms and stares at the ground by Jacob's feet. Presumably it's his turn to be shouted at, now. But Jacob just comes to stand in front of him, so close they're almost touching.

"Why did you kiss _Evie_?" Jacob asks.

"I don't know," Arno says. "Just for fun, I guess. I'm sorry if you thought it was disrespectful to your sister, or... I don't know."

"No," Jacob says. "No, that's not…Evie's right, she can make her own choices. And if it were anyone else I wouldn't care, but…"

Thoroughly confused now, Arno raises his eyes to meet Jacob's gaze. He's only met the man once or twice before, but the sadness and hurt and _longing_ he sees etched across Jacob's face does nothing to help him understand. "So there's something about me?" he asks. "Am I not good enough for your sister?"

"You're good enough for anyone you want," Jacob says at once. "But why would you kiss _her_ , and not—"

That's when he vanishes, and Arno sags back against the wall of the tavern. Well. That… could have gone better. And he's not sure if he owes Jacob an apology or Evie, but he's fairly sure he's done something wrong.

Maybe he should count himself lucky that this is the worst that's happened. Maybe this is a sign that he should settle down and wait for Elise to come home. No more women, Arno swears to himself. None but Elise. He can be loyal. He _will_ be.

-//-

Evie spends a few days angrily avoiding Jacob until she realizes that he is not yet the Jacob that had gotten so irrationally angry at her for kissing Arno. He won't be that man for many years, and it's foolish for Evie to be angry with him for _that_ when he's giving her fresh headaches on a nearly daily basis.

She slips back into her normal relationship with her brother, and does not mention that night with Arno. A month or two later, she meets Desmond for the first time, and to her own surprise begins to fall in love. It's beautiful while it lasts, but then there is the confusion of remembering her first life, of the agonizing choice between two men she truly loves. There is the peace that follows her eventual decision to marry Henry, and the relief when her relationship with Desmond settles into an unwavering friendship. Slightly painful at times, yes, but at least she has not lost him entirely.

And in all that confusion, her single kiss with Arno is buried. She does not think of it, and in time it is forgotten.

Many, many years later, when Evie has married Henry, when she has moved to India with him and is pregnant with their child, Evie finds herself on a visit to Ezio. He takes in her swollen belly and jumps to his feet at once to offer her his chair—Evie smiles but shakes her head and waves him back down.

"There's plenty of chairs here," she says, easing herself into the nearest. "I don't need yours."

"I didn't know you were pregnant," Ezio says, and Evie puts a protective hand on the place where her child is growing. "It's Henry's?"

"Of course it is," Evie says.

"Well, you never know," Ezio says, smiling in a way that makes it clear he hadn't meant offense.

"Not all of us will lie with anyone willing," Evie says, with equal good cheer.

"Not _anyone_ ," Ezio says.

"Yea?" Edward appears from the next room and drops into the seat next to Ezio. "Just out of the people here, just visitors, how many of us have you slept with?"

"Come on, Edward—"

"Oh!" Edward turns back to Evie. "Congratulations on your pregnancy, by the way. I've seen your daughter, she's a lovely girl. Bit quiet, but—"

"Hey," Evie protests. "Stop telling me things about my own life that I don't know yet."

"Spoilers," Ezio says, kicking Edward under the table.

He kicks back. "Fine. We can go back to talking about how many of us you've slept with."

Ezio laughs and lets the conversation shift away. "Fine," he says. "I've slept with you, obviously. And Jacob."

"Same here," Edward says. "You and Jacob."

"Well, that's not very much," Evie teases. "I've slept with Desmond, that's half as many visitors as either of you."

"Well, it would be more if _certain people_ weren't such prudes. But—well, if we count kisses, I've kissed Altair, him—" he points to Edward. "Shay, Jacob, and—oh, myself of course. So five visitors."

"You can't count yourself," Edward scoffs.

"Why?" Ezio asks. "Are you worried I'll have more than you?"

Edward immediately starts counting on his fingers. "You, Aveline, Desmond, Jacob…" he scowls.

"Only four!" Ezio crows. "I win."

Edward crosses his arms and mutters something rude.

"What about you, Evie?" Ezio asks, in what might be a genuine attempt to include her in the conversation. It's unnecessary, just watching them bicker is entertaining enough, but Evie decides to humor him anyway.

"Just Desmond," she says. "But there was quite a lot of that, once upon a time. Quality over quantity."

"He's a decent kisser," Edward says, nodding knowledgably.

"Wait," Ezio says. "Really, Evie? You've been visiting this many years and you've only managed to kiss one visitor?"

Evie is halfway through a laugh when she realizes that—well no, actually, that's not true. The smile wavers and dies on her face. "I did kiss Arno once," she admits. "But it was… a very long time ago." The memory comes back, shockingly strong after ignoring it for all this time. "We were young, we had only just started visiting…"

"And you kissed the man your brother's in love with?" Edward asks. " _Wow_ , Evie. Even I wouldn't do that."

"Only because you don't have a brother," Ezio says. "Evie—"

"Oh God," Evie whispers. "That's why he was so angry. He walked in on us, an older Jacob… he was more upset than I've ever seen him and I had no idea—I mean, in my time, Jacob and Arno had only just met. They weren't even friends yet, I had no idea Jacob was going to fall in love with Arno." She puts her hands over her mouth. "I feel awful—"

And as if on cue, Jacob walks through the kitchen door then, next to a thoroughly annoyed looking Desmond. Jacob, for some reason, is naked, but it doesn't stop Evie as she gets to her feet and hurries to her brother. "Jacob," she says. She hugs him, but—well, frankly, he's naked and the hug doesn't last as long as it might have otherwise. He looks at least as old as that long ago Jacob had looked when he walked in on Evie with Arno. "I am so sorry."

"Um—" He looks at Evie, then at Ezio and Edward. "What?"

"I kissed Arno," Evie says. "I didn't know—look, Jacob, you know I would never have hurt you like that intentionally, you know—"

"It's okay," Jacob says, giving her a second hug. His lasts longer. "I promise, Evie. It's okay. It's over. You didn't know. He didn't know. It's not like you were having some affair with each other, right?"

"Of course not."

"Then it's fine," Jacob says. "And it all turned out okay."

"Good," Evie says. "Good." She lets the hug go on a few seconds more, then steps back. "Now that issue is sorted out—why are you _naked_?"

Jacob smiles sheepishly. "I was naked when my visit started," he says. "So… no clothes."

"Go borrow something," Evie says, pushing him firmly out of the room. "You're traumatizing my unborn child."

He goes. Desmond catches Evie's eye and shakes his head—she grins back—then follows his visitor somewhere upstairs.

Evie settles back into conversation with Ezio and Edward, this time on safer topics of conversation. Jacob comes back down with Desmond after a few minutes—and he looks so _strange_ , in his borrowed twenty first century clothes—and the two of them join the talk.

And then eventually Edward says—in a loud, obnoxious voice that is more than likely intended to cause trouble—"So Jacob, when you showed up naked, who were _you_ sleeping with?"

"What?"

"Oh God, don't start that again," Evie protests. And then all of them burst into conversation at once, and the loud, cheerful conversation that follows makes for one of the most entertaining visits Evie has had in a long time. When she returns home, still smiling, she thinks that maybe Jacob is right. It's okay. It's over. The kiss with Arno doesn't matter.

"Are you alright, Evie?" Henry asks, settling beside her in bed. She's supposed to be resting until the baby is born—visits excluded, because otherwise Evie is half convinced she would have gone mad from the boredom of lying in bed. "You look like you're a million miles away."

He smiles at her, and—as always—finds herself smiling in response. "I was just thinking about our child," she says. "Something tells me she's going to be a girl."

"I can't wait to meet her," Henry says. He leans in close and this— _this_ is the kiss that matters. Evie closes her eyes, and she gives herself up to his love.


	97. Chapter 97

Desmond is seventeen, and still a virgin, but Rosemary says she is too, so maybe that's okay. Or maybe it just means that neither of them is going to know what they're doing, and the whole thing will be terrible.

"You're thinking again," Rosemary teases.

"Worrying," Desmond corrects.

"I know. I was trying to be nice."

Desmond laughs, and tries to look like he's not worrying, even though he is, because this girl is… she's really pretty and she's looking at him like she can't wait to see him with his pants off, and Desmond isn't entirely confident in what he has to offer there. It's not like he's ever done this before, he's never even _imagined_ doing this before. And also they're lying together on her narrow bed, and Desmond keeps looking at her pink walls that look like they haven't been painted since she was a little girl, and he keeps thinking about how she said her dad wouldn't be home be home for hours but what if she's wrong—

"Stop thinking," Rosemary scolds him.

"Sorry." Desmond shifts and turns toward her. The bed is so small that they are practically nose to nose. "But what if—what if your dad comes back early?"

"He won't," Rosemary says.

"What if one of us has an STD, or something?"

"I don't," Rosemary says. "Do you?"

"I don't think so."

"Then we're okay."

"But what if you get pregnant?" Desmond presses.

"I _won't_ ," Rosemary insists.

"You can't know that," Desmond says. "I don't want to have a baby. I'd be a terrible dad."

Rosemary makes a face. "Well do you want to use a condom?"

"Do you have one?"

"No."

"Then why did you offer?"

"I don't know—" Rosemary sits up and runs her shaking hands through her hair. "Desmond, you're sweet. And I like you, and I really want to do this with you."

"So do I," Desmond says. He sits up as well, and they just look at each other for a long time.

"If we don't do this," Rosemary says. "It's going to be really awkward the next time I come in for coffee. You're the best barista in town, I can't go anywhere else."

Desmond half smiles at the compliment. He _hates_ working in the coffee shop, but it pays, and he's got this half formed idea of switching from barista to bartender when he turns twenty one. They're both just serving drinks anyway, and he knows a guy that says bartending can pay really well if you're good at it. But for now there's just the old coffee shop, the one full of boring, cranky regulars, and then Rosemary showing up like a ray of sunshine, always smiling, coming by more and more often, and always during Desmond's shift…

"Okay," Desmond says. "Okay, let's do this."

"Do you promise not to think anymore?" Rosemary asks.

He raises one hand like he's taking an oath. "Promise."

"Okay then," Rosemary says. She smiles and pulls her shirt off, and Desmond tries really hard to pretend this isn't his first time seeing a girl's breasts in real life. He feels very young, and very immature, but there's something stirring inside him, and something else stirring in his pants, and that's when he knows what to do, that's when he finally manages to stop thinking and just—do.

He's pretty sure they're not doing everything right. There's a lot of awkwardly trying to position themselves on Rosemary's little bed, a lot of giggling and a little bit of something—special.

When they're both finished, when they're sweaty and spent and naked on the bed together, Desmond closes his eyes and sleeps well for the first time in ages. Probably for the first time since running away from the Farm. _Definitely_ for the first time since starting work at the coffee shop. Caffeine is great when you're a paranoid runaway with people chasing you, but it doesn't help you _sleep_.

When he opens his eyes again the room is dark and Rosemary is still asleep, and there's a man standing in the room, not looking at them but still way too close for comfort. Desmond yells and tries to gather Rosemary's sheets around him, but only manages to fall clumsily from the bed.

"Desmond—shit, what?" Rosemary sits up, confused, and looks down at where he's sprawled out on the floor.

"Your dad…"

Desmond scrambles to his feet and goes searching for his clothes—Rosemary glances out her window and shakes her head. "His car's not in the driveway," she says. "He's not back yet. It's okay, Desmond, calm down. Come back to bed."

"But…" Desmond pauses with one leg in his jeans, and stares at the man still standing in the middle of the room. He takes in the strange, old fashioned clothes, and for half a heart stopping second thinks he recognizes the assassin's symbol on the man's belt, in the shape of his—what is that, a _tomahawk_ on his hip? Then the man is just gone, and Rosemary is staring at Desmond like he's crazy, and…well, Rosemary's dad actually does come home after that, and the look on his face when he walks in reminds Desmond strongly of his own father. He runs.

-//-

Four months go by. Desmond goes back to work, and Rosemary does not come to see him. He waits. Hopes. Some of her friends come by, and they say she's been grounded indefinitely.

Desmond blames himself, of course.

Eventually, Rosemary comes back to the coffee shop. It's been ages by then, and Desmond knows he should have moved on, but he's been hoping to see her. He really wants to know she's okay.

So of course, as soon as she walks through the door, his courage gives out completely and he bolts for the back room. He stays there, pressed against the wall, fists clenched and eyes squeezed closed, terrified that he'll have to see her, or say something, try to explain…

From where he is, Desmond can just barely hear Rosemary talking to his manager. "Excuse me," she says. "Is Desmond in today?"

"Uh…" Desmond can picture the exact look of clueless confusion on the manager's face. "I'll go check the back, I guess?"

"Thank you," she says.

The manager pokes his head into the back room. He sees Desmond, and Desmond frantically shakes his head no. The manager winks and backs out again.

"Sorry," he tells Rosemary. "Not working today."

"Oh," Rosemary says. "Well—the next time he comes in, can you tell him I really need to talk to him? Please?"

"Uh—sure, I guess."

When she's gone, Desmond's manager comes back to talk to him. "Girls," he scoffs. "Always need something."

"I guess," Desmond mutters.

"Still—" his manager claps him on the shoulder, and Desmond tries not to flinch. "She's pretty. Little chubby around the middle, but not bad."

Desmond shrugs. "Can I go on my break?" he asks. "I need some air."

When the manager nods, Desmond hurries out the back door without a word. He never goes back to that coffee shop, and takes the next bus out of town. The tomahawk man is there at the bus stop, only half looking at Desmond. Well, that's okay. Desmond is only half looking at him, because he doesn't know if he's being stalked by a crazy man or imagining things or _what._

"I'm a horrible person," he confesses to the tomahawk man.

"No you're not," the tomahawk man says, which makes Desmond feel a little better. But only a little, because he doesn't think Rosemary would agree.

By the time the bus—headed for New York City—arrives, the tomahawk man is gone again.


	98. Chapter 98

It is hard, Jacob finds, to be a father. Many years after his own father's death, Jacob finally finds himself wanting to apologize. It's not so easy, raising a son. Particularly one without a mother. And when that son is determined to cause as much trouble as he can, when he screams and cries, throws things, shouts from his room that he _hates_ his father…

Jacob had done all that when he was seven or eight. He remembers waiting years for his father to take him and Evie back, and then when he finally did… he was harsh, distant, confusing. Jacob had lashed out, and Evie had pulled him back. Every time.

But Jacob only has a son, he doesn't have a daughter. It's just him and Edgar. And it isn't that Jacob doesn't want a son. Maybe—in other circumstances… But not like this. Not dumped on his doorstep by an angry woman Jacob had slept with _once_ , who has no desire to see him or the child again.

"I hate you!" Edgar screams again from his room. It's muffled by distance and choked with tears, and Jacob wishes desperately that he could do something to ease that pain. But everything he says or does makes things worse. So Jacob stays downstairs, slumped against the wall, wishing the kid would just tire himself out and fall asleep already.

"You're going up to see him, aren't you?"

Jacob smiles out of habit at the sound of Arno's voice, but he's tired and the smile fades in an instant. Once upon a time, that smile would have stuck to his face for days, but back then there had been hope, however distant, that Arno might one day come to love him. But it's been years since Arno told him (in no uncertain terms) that this would never happen. And maybe Jacob has not stopped loving Arno, but at least he has learned to love him quietly. "I've gone up to see Edgar," he says, and he hates the way his voice sounds dead. "I've spoken to him, I've held him, I've done everything I can think of and it just doesn't matter."

"But you're his father," Arno says.

"It's not something either of us chose," Jacob says.

"But—" Arno's eyebrows pinch together, as if in genuine confusion over having to say it twice. "You're his father."

"There's no law that says a son has to love his father," Jacob says. "And if there was, I think Edgar would really enjoy breaking it. He'd really _relish_ it, you know?"

"Well, what's he so upset about?" Arno asks, shifting so he's leaning against the wall next to Jacob.

"Today?" Jacob asks. "Let's see—I think today, it started when I told him to get dressed, and he said he didn't want to, and then we argued for a full hour. I swear, every conversation with that boy is a _battle_."

"I'm sorry," Arno says. "I wish things didn't have to be so complicated for you."

"And I have to go out tonight," Jacob groans, rubbing at his face. "Assassin business."

"Who stays with Edgar when you go out?" Arno asks.

"No one," Jacob says. "It's not ideal, but frankly there's no one willing. When he was smaller I could still get some of the Rooks to come watch him. But he's such a little terror he's driven them all away."

"Poor child," Arno says, glancing toward Edgar's room. "He must be so lonely."

"If he is, it's his own fault," Jacob says.

Arno kicks him. Not hard, just enough to make a point. "Is anyone going to die if you miss your business tonight?" he asks.

"Well—not die, I suppose, no," Jacob says.

"Then miss it," Arno says. "Stay here with your son."

In all honesty, Jacob had arranged tonight's business just to give himself an excuse to be away from Edgar and his moods and his anger for a few hours. "I can't," he says.

And that's the last he says in his own body before Arno borrows it. Steals it. Whichever. "Now you have to," Arno says. "I'm going to talk to him."

"Arno!" Jacob lunges after his friend and grabs him by the arm as Arno starts to move away. "Arno, you can't!"

"Someone has to."

"I couldn't stand it," Jacob says. "He'll be hateful to you like he's hateful to me, and you don't deserve that."

"And you do?"

"Maybe."

" _Jacob_."

"Probably!"

Arno stares at him, surprised by Jacob's outburst. Then he shakes his head and pulls his arm away. "I don't believe that," he says, and the warm glow of Arno's confidence in him wars inside Jacob with the coldness of Edgar's childish hatred. In the end, the confusion is enough to let Arno slip away from Jacob, up the stairs to where Edgar waits.

Jacob follows, miserable and ashamed. He is so, so awful at being a father, while every other visitor seems to have children that absolutely _adore_ them. Part of Jacob wants to protest that it's not fair, but he's old enough by now to know that yes, it is fair. He has only himself to blame for his own pain. If he were a better person, parent, father—

Arno's sharp hiss of pain interrupts Jacob's thoughts. He looks up and sees that, yes, Edgar has kicked Arno the moment he came into the room and then run away immediately to his bed to sulk. Jacob huddles uneasily against the wall, but Arno—with all apparent calm—simply crosses the room to sit cross legged on the foot of Edgar's bed.

After several long minutes of absolute silence, Edgar starts to shift uncomfortably. "Dad?" he says, in a quiet, confused voice that is _very_ unlike the screaming Jacob is more used to. "Are you okay?"

"I'm thinking," Arno says.

Again, there is silence while Edgar squirms and visibly tries to figure out what's wrong with his father. "What are you thinking _about_?" he finally asks.

"You," Arno says. "I think we need to do something together."

"It's not going to work," Jacob mutters. "We never do anything together."

Arno looks over his shoulder at Jacob and gives him a well-maybe-that's-the-problem-you-idiot look. Then he shifts his attention back to Edgar.

"What do you want to do?" Edgar asks, and—no, it has to be Jacob's imagination, hearing the hopeful note in his voice.

Arno leans forward, a Jacob-worthy grin on his face. "Something stupid," he says. "Something dangerous."

"What?" Jacob demands, stepping forward before he can stop himself. "Arno, what are you thinking?"

"Trust me," Arno says, glancing at Jacob.

But it's Edgar, inching nervously across the bed, that says "Okay."

Arno picks him up and then it's all Jacob can do to keep up with the two of them as Arno is out the window and climbing up to roof level. They run for a while, and by the way Arno keeps to a straight line instead of the easiest path, Jacob thinks he might be heading for something specific.

And sure enough, he is. After what feels like forever, Arno stops on a roof that is—well, something about seeing Arno in Jacob's body, holding Edgar while the kid squirms in an effort to apparently throw himself off the roof, makes Jacob fully aware of the height in a way he's never worried about before. It's really tall. It's… really, _really_ tall, and Jacob knows that in an academic way, but it means something else when his kid is standing there.

Arno sets Edgar down on the roof, but—probably because Edgar still looks way too interested in jumping off the roof—keeps a firm hold of his hands.

"What's the stupid thing we're going to do?" Edgar asks.

"Running around on rooftops doesn't count?" Arno asks.

Edgar shakes his head, smiling a little. "More stupid?" he says. "Please?"

"You have to do exactly what I say," Arno says. "Alright?"

"Yea," Edgar says.

"Even though you hate me?" Arno asks, and his eyes flick sideways to look at Jacob.

Edgar flushes and looks at where his hands rest in Arno's—Jacob's?—Arno's larger ones. "Maybe if we did stuff like this more, I wouldn't hate you," he says. "I don't like it when you go away."

"You sure don't act like it," Jacob says. Arno doesn't repeat this to Edgar.

"Come here," Arno says, and Edgar inches closer until Arno is holding him tightly around the middle.

"What are we gonna do?" Edgar whispers.

"Jump," Arno says, and then Jacob's heart is in his mouth because he has never heard Edgar make the noise like the one he makes as Arno falls backward into a leap of faith. He shrieks in surprise and then bursts into laughter. Jacob stays where he is as long as visiting will let him, then leaps as well to stay in range of Arno.

Halfway down, Arno drops out of Jacob's body so that Jacob is suddenly falling with his arms wrapped around Edgar and just for a second everything is okay. They land in a hay cart and then Arno falls next to them—Jacob turns his head and he's amazingly close to Arno, and Arno's smile.

"Whoa!" Edgar says, squirming in Jacob's arms. "Dad—whoa!"

"How did you know what to do?" Jacob whispers to Arno.

"Are you kidding?" Arno scoffs. "I did the same thing with you when you were a kid. You were upset and I figured jumping off something tall would help. And it did. So I thought it would be worth a try with your kid. And I thought maybe you needed to worry about him a little bit, too."

Edgar is still on top of him, still happy, still clinging to Jacob with little boy fingers. "Thanks," Jacob whispers. "Seriously, Arno, I could kiss y…"

He stops abruptly. It's been ages since Jacob had agreed to stop saying things like that to Arno, but every once in a while, he just… can't help himself. And they're so close.

Arno looks like he's seriously considering saying something, but in the end, to Jacob's intense gratitude, he just smiles and shakes it off. "Jacob…"

Edgar picks that moment to turn his head and sneeze on both of them. More than once.

"Dad," Edgar whines. "Dad, straw itches my nose."

"Yea," Jacob says, wiping his face and clambering out of the hay cart. "Time to get out of here, I think."

Halfway home, when Arno has gone, Jacob looks down at Edgar and says, "I'm sorry, kid."

Edgar looks up at him, eyes not quite understanding but still hopeful. His mouth works, looking for something to say. Then he manages, "Maybe I don't hate you."

"Thanks," Jacob says.

"Not today, anyway," Edgar adds, which makes it less of a victory than Jacob had hoped for, but more than he'd expected. After all, this is _his_ kid. His. And maybe if he was Evie's, or whatever, this would have ended differently. Because Evie's always been better with this stuff than Jacob, she'd have figured out exactly the right words to say or the right thing to do to make Edgar adore her forever.

Jacob will settle for not being hated today.

"Can we jump off a building again?" Edgar asks.

"I think we probably can," Jacob says.


	99. Chapter 99

When Edgar is thirteen—and stubborn, and hormonal, and as argumentative as ever—he comes to Jacob and asks, "Why don't you ever talk about my mum?"

Jacob is distracted by Arno lecturing him about food (Jacob has lived on his own since Evie and Henry left for India, but he's never really learned to cook), and says, "I didn't really know her," without thinking.

"Jacob—" Arno bats Jacob's hand away seconds before he'd have put it on a pot of boiling water. "Seriously, will you pay attention? You'll hurt yourself."

"Dad," Edgar says, talking right over Arno. Of course he does. He can't see him, or hear him, which is almost funny, really, considering how often Arno's been there to help Jacob figure out what to do. It's not like Jacob and Edgar don't argue, because they do. A lot. But not the way they might have without Arno. It's not vicious or hateful, it's just disagreements between two people that really don't like to be wrong.

"What?" Jacob asks. He moves his hand back in an attempt to find something to lean casually against.

"Jacob," Arno says, in the manner of a man very close to true despair. "Hand. Pot of boiling water.  _ Don't _ ."

Jacob moves his hand away again.

"Was my mum… if you didn't know her, and she's not exactly around… was she a prostitute?"

"No," Jacob says. Then he considers. "I don't think so, anyway."

"Oh."

"Look," Jacob says. "I was… missing someone." He doesn't look at Arno, just kind of fiddles with his hands a little and then drops them back down. Arno physically moves his hand away from the stove. "I was lonely, I went for some drinks and the next thing I know there's a woman in my lap and she's pretty, so…"

He trails off.

"I wish I hadn't asked," Edgar mutters, looking away from Jacob. He leans up close to the stove himself. "I mean—you literally know  _ nothing  _ about her, do you? It's like I don't have a mum at all."

Arno mumbles a good natured complaint about Frye men and their general intelligence levels, then borrows Jacob's body just long enough to steer Edgar bodily away from the stove. "You're going to hurt yourself," he warns, and then lets Jacob back in.

Edgar raises his eyebrows. "Dad?"

Jacob sighs. "No," he says. "I guess you sort of don't have a mum. But you have something better."

"Yea?" Edgar mutters. "What?"

"You have an Arno," Jacob says.

Arno kicks at his ankle.

"A what?" Edgar asks.

"Never mind," Jacob says. "It's just—you have someone watching out for you." He finally drags his eyes away from Edgar and over to Arno. He's expecting to see his visitor rolling his eyes or shaking his head. Instead, he sees a faint blush and a thin smile. "We both do," Jacob adds, more quietly.

Edgar struggles with this for a second—then nods like Jacob has confirmed something Edgar has suspected for a long time. "You're weird, dad."

"Runs in the family," Jacob says. "Go wash up for dinner."


	100. Chapter 100

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 100! I am excited.

"Do you think I should tell her?"

Shay looks up at Arno, who is nearly dancing around his rooms in excitement. He has never looked younger or more carefree than he does at this moment, and Shay feels a fond smile stretching across his face in response. It helps, of course, that this is an extremely young Arno, one who is _very_ new to visiting, one who is not even an assassin yet. But he is absolutely giddy with excitement, and Shay thinks it might be due to more than simply youth.

"I don't know," he says. "You would have to tell me who she is and what you want to share with her."

"Elise," Arno says, but he says it like a man in love. It's like—it's almost like the way a man's voice sounds different when he smiles, but _more_ so, like Arno's happiness is too great to be contained without spilling over into his words. "She's coming home today, and I want to tell her about visitors."

"You should," Shay says, and Arno laughs. Not really at Shay and not really with him, he's just—laughing. He looks and sounds the way Shay had felt when he was young and just beginning to grasp the fact that Aveline loved him in return—although Shay, of course, had not dared to smile the way Arno does now, because the idea of their love for each other translating into something _real_ had still seemed impossible then.

"Really?" Arno asks. "I thought you would say I should keep it secret."

"Why should I?" Shay asks. "If you trust her, and you want to share this with her, you should say something." Besides, he knows Elise will know one day. The very first time Shay met Arno—on his first visit after coming to the future—Arno had spoken quite freely of visiting to Elise.

"Alright." Arno grins. "I'm going to tell her. She'll think I'm lying, but I'll tell her."

"I might be able to help," Shay offers. "I can borrow your body after you explain things to her."

Arno hesitates. "Won't that just confuse her?" he asks. "I don't want to—Shay, I really like Elise."

"I can tell," Shay says, hiding a smile.

"Can you?" Arno asks, in what sounds like genuine surprise. "Anyway, I don't want her to see you in my body, and think I'm—I'm making fun of her, or something."

"I will be very respectful," Shay promises.

Arno makes a noise of reluctant consideration. "I'll think about it," he says.

-//-

There's a party that night. Shay—who is used to such things, who has his eyes open and knows where to look—sees that it is at least partially a cover for Elise's initiation as a templar. But Arno is still an innocent in such things and Shay doesn't think he would have told Arno, even if he had already been an assassin. This is templar business.

But then, once that is over, there is Elise-and-Arno business. Shay looks away as they embrace, and gives them their piracy to kiss and then to talk. He does his best to keep himself occupied until at last Arno calls his name. Shay turns back to him, and sees Elise frowning skeptically, arms crossed, body language clearly reflecting her reluctance to believe Arno's story.

"Shay," Arno says. "You can come in now."

So Shay, gently as he can, takes control of Arno's body. He meets Elise's eyes, and makes an effort to retain as much of himself as he can. Posture, stance, accent—when he opens Arno's mouth and says, "It's lovely to meet you, Mademoiselle de la Serre," her eyes go wide.

"Arno?" she says, unfolding just a bit.

"No," Shay says. "My name is Shay Cormac."

"Don't let her think I'm mad," Arno begs from beside Shay. "Please."

"You _must_ be Arno," Elise says. "How else could you look like him."

"Arno—" Shay turns back and looks at where Arno hovers anxiously at his shoulder. "Can you leave the two of us alone for a moment?"

"I'm visiting," Arno objects.

"Just out to the hall," Shay says. "You should be able to get that far away from me."

Arno goes—hesitantly, looking back at them all the way—but he goes. Shay turns back to Elise.

"Are you ill?" she asks. "Arno, please."

"My name is Shay," Shay says again. "I am a templar, and—"

"You know of the order?" Elise interrupts. "Arno, _how_?"

"I told you," Shay says, maintaining his patience only because he knows this is important to Arno. "I'm—"

She interrupts him ( _Again,_ Shay can't help noticing. He has heard Arno praising Elise's virtues half a hundred times, but he can't remember him ever mentioning how much she likes to interrupt). But this time, instead of interrupting him with words, Elise grabs him by the shoulders and kisses him.

It's… over quickly, and that's the best Shay can say for the kiss. When _Arno_ kisses Elise, he makes it look like something purely magical, but for Shay it only makes him think wistfully of Aveline and Haytham. Elise pulls away almost at once. "You were right," she says. "You—you're not Arno."

And just like that, there's a blade to his throat. "Careful!" Shay protests. "Careful, or you'll hurt Arno!" Elise hesitates, and Shay presses the momentary advantage. "I swear to you," he says. "I am on your side, in every way. I want only the best for Arno. _And_ I am a templar."

"Really?" Elise says. The hand holding her blade against Shay's neck trembles worryingly. "Which grandmaster do you serve under?"

"Haytham Kenway," Shay says.

"He's been dead nearly two decades," Elise protests. "But Arno said…" she eases away from him. "You can travel in time? Really?"

"Yes," Shay says. "Really."

Elise eases away and Shay takes a cautious step back, just in case she decides to try stabbing him again. "So visiting," she says. "It's real?"

"Very real."

"Ah." She looks Shay over again, still frowning. "That's… good, I suppose."

"I'm glad you think so," Shay says. "I happen to agree, personally."

"It means you can watch out for Arno, can't you?" She speaks all in a rush. "He doesn't know anything about the templars, about any of this."

"I know," Shay says after a long pause. It is not his place to tell Elise that Arno will one day, one day soon, be an assassin. "And I know that I will do whatever I can to keep him safe. All of our visitors will."

She smiles at him at last, and although it is not the same smile she had given Arno a few minutes ago, it is quick and confident. It reminds Shay of Jeanne, and he cannot resist saying aloud, "You remind me of my daughter."

"Do I?" Elise asks, with a startled laugh. "Do me a favor, Monsieur Cormac. Please don't say that again when you're in Arno's body."

"I won't," Shay promises. "And I will watch over Arno as well as I can."

"Thank you," Elise says. Shay inclines his head, and Elise says, "Can you let him back, now? Arno? It's… been a while since we were able to be together."

Shay drops out of Arno's body without a word, taking Arno's place just outside the room. When he gets back inside, Arno and Elise are wrapped in one another's arms, foreheads nearly touching, deep in whispered conversation. Shay leans back against the nearest wall to wait his visit out.


	101. Chapter 101

"Edgar!" Jacob shouts. "Edgar!"

"I'm busy!" Edgar shouts back.

"You better be busy cleaning your room!"

"It was already clean!"

"If I come up there again and there's a training knife on the floor, I'm taking it away. Someone might step on it."

"Ugh!"

Jacob goes back to his work. He has cleaning of his own to do, and everything has to be absolutely perfect before Evie arrives. It's 1882. Eleven years since Evie went away. Ten years since Edgar was born. Four years since Evie's daughter, Abigail. There have been visits, of course, but they haven't seen each other in more than a decade. They're both parents now, but Edgar has never met Evie, and Abigail has never met Jacob. It's crazy, it's  _ insane _ . They shouldn't have waited this long, but travel between continents is a nightmare, and things never seem to die down long enough for them to travel.

Until now. Because finally,  _ finally _ , Evie is bringing her family to visit. Normal visit. She'd visitor-visited an hour or so earlier and said the ship is close to docking, and that they'd be home by afternoon.

Jacob is absolutely beside himself with excitement. Edgar is rolling his eyes at every opportunity, and Jacob is fairly sure he's going to climb out his window and find someone better than family to hang out with as soon as he thinks he can get away with it. Which is fine with Jacob, as long as he waits long enough to meet Evie.

And is polite to her. Because Jacob will put up with Edgar being rude to  _ him _ , but that's not going to happen with Evie. Absolutely not.

"Is it clean yet?" Jacob calls a half hour later.

"No!"

"Edgar!"

" _ Dad _ !" Edgar sounds exasperated. "Why are you making such a big deal out of this?"

"Because you have to clean your room before a four-year-old wanders in and hurts herself!"

"Why?"

Jacob feels very much like rolling his eyes himself. "Because I said so!"

"I don't want to!"

"Clean your room or you won't be allowed to practice free climbing for a week."

"Everything is permitted!"

"You're being a brat!"

"You're being mean!"

"You're immature!"

"I'm  _ ten _ !"

"You're—"

Jacob suddenly becomes aware that someone else is in the room—he turns around midshout, and comes face to face with Evie. Actually, really there, Evie, with Henry and Abigail behind her. Jacob makes a noise like a squeak and hugs his sister as hard as he can. She smells different than she used to, like milk and some foreign spices, or something. Jacob wastes half a second wondering why he's never noticed that on visits, but then goes right back to thinking about hugging Evie.

"Welcome home," he says.

"Good to be back," Evie says. "I missed you."

Their hug is interrupted by Abigail pulling on her mother's coat until Evie bends down and to Abigail's level. "Abby," she says, looking down at her daughter and smiling. "This is your Uncle Jacob."

"It's lovely to meet you, Abigail," Jacob says, then looks back at Evie. The two of them share a small, secret smile. Like Jacob hasn't seen Abigail dozens of times on visits. Like he and Evie haven't spent countless visits in long, winding conversation, sharing their struggles as parents.

Abigail turns and hides behind Evie's leg, and Evie smiles fondly. "Sorry, Jacob," she says. "She takes a while to get over being shy around new people."

"That's fine," Jacob says. "Take your time." He looks up then, back at Henry. "Hello."

"Hello," Henry says. He looks absolutely exhausted from the journey. "Nice to see you again."

"You too," Jacob says. He makes an effort to think of something normal and conversational to say. "So," he says. "How's In—" Henry surprises him by hugging him. "Oh," Jacob says. "Okay."

Henry laughs at him as he steps back. "We are family, Jacob. And believe it or not, I have really come to miss your particular brand of strangeness."

"Well, thank you," Jacob says. "I think. Do you want some food? Edgar keeps telling me I can't cook but I mean neither of us has dropped dead yet."

"Reassuring," Henry says. Then he half grins, and adds. "I think."

They move toward the kitchen, and Jacob starts working on food. Conversation comes quickly and easily with Evie and Henry, but Abigail stays quiet the whole time. That's fine. Jacob's seen enough of her on visits to know that Evie's right, and she really does take a long time to open up to people when she meets them.

Even with just the grownups talking (although to be fair, Jacob still has a hard time thinking of himself as a grownup. He's thirty five years old and  _ grownup  _ still applies to people in his father's generation), the kitchen is brighter and more lively than it has been in a long time. Maybe ever.

"You know what," Henry says when the food is nearly ready. "Jacob, I'm sort of surprised you're not still living on the train."

"Well, I was," Jacob says. "Until Edgar. But he hated the train when he was a baby. He'd cry and scream and refuse to sleep until we went somewhere quiet. So—I mean the train's still around. Some of the Rooks stay there, and it's still good when you need a quick getaway. But… no. We've been on solid ground for a while now."

"Dad!" Edgar calls from the stairs. " _ Dad!" _

"What?"

"Come here!"

"Are all the conversations the two of you have just shouting at each other?" Evie teases.

"Uh…" Jacob doesn't quite look at her. "Some of them." Or most of them. But it's not like it's a problem, not usually. Sure, there are times when the shouting actually turns angry, but most of the time they just… communicate at a high volume. To cover the awkward silence, Jacob hurries out of the kitchen to find out what's wrong with Edgar.

He finds his son standing on the stairs, one hand on the bannister for balance. Abigail is attached to his left leg, hugging tightly and grinning like she's been given a present. Jacob stops in his tracks and barks out a laugh at Edgar's panicky scowl. "Dad," Edgar whines. "Get her off!"

"I like you," Abigail whispers.

Jacob just shakes his head and grins. "Edgar, this is your cousin, Abigail."

"Dad…"

Evie joins Jacob in the hall and smiles too. "I swear," she says. "She  _ never  _ does this with new people."

"It must be his natural charm," Jacob says. "He gets it from me."

Evie and Edgar both make loud, dismissive, vaguely insulting noises at the same time, and Jacob just can't stop smiling because he  _ loves  _ his family.


	102. Chapter 102

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is set after [Revisited 14.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5891452/chapters/15241306)

Half a dozen visits ago, Arno had asked Jacob to pretend not to be in love with him anymore. He doesn't want to hear it, apparently (which is awful, and painful, but Jacob is doing his best). Since then, things between them have been cold and awkward, but very, very, very slowly inching their way back toward normal.

At this point, Jacob just wants his friend back, and he is delighted beyond reason when Arno appears on the street beside him and smiles. "Good," Arno says. "It's you."

"Were you expecting someone else?" Jacob asks, trying not to look like Arno has just made his entire day. This is a younger Arno--Jacob is fairly sure he hasn't even reached the point where he catches Jacob sleeping with Ezio and Edward. But Jacob is lonely, he misses his friend, and he's going to enjoy this visit for as long as it lasts. 

"Not expecting so much as fearing," Arno says. "I thought you might be Shay."

"I'm not," Jacob says. "What's wrong with Shay?"

"He killed my father," Arno says, stiff and tense.

Jacob stops himself from laughing at the absurdity of this at the last possible second, and only because he's just barely back in Arno's good graces himself. "But a templar killed your father," he says.

Arno gives him a funny look. "Shay  _ is  _ a templar."

"Oh yea." Jacob frowns. "I forget."

"Easy to forget he's an enemy," Arno says. "I know, I felt the same way. But he is. Always has been."

They walk on together in silence, and then after a while Jacob says, "I'm sorry, Arno. I really am."

Arno gives him a suspicious look, then softens. "Thank you, Jacob. It's good to have a friend right now."

"Arno…"

Jacob makes to turn around at the sound of Shay's voice behind him, but Arno grabs him by the elbow to stop him, just as Jacob gets half a glimpse of Shay's stricken, guilty face. And Jacob feels bad for him, but he'd side with Arno over anyone in the world (save Evie, probably). He's missed him too much to risk losing him now.

"I told you not to speak to me," Arno says, and Jacob has never,  _ never  _ heard Arno's voice go cold and hard and sharp like it does now.

Shay falls silent.

"Jacob," Arno says.

"Um…" He twitches a little, unnerved by Shay's silence as much as Arno's coldness. Arno's hand stops him, again, from turning around to look at Shay. "Yea?"

"It's been a while since we did anything fun," Arno says. "Like we used to."

"Yea," Jacob agrees. "Did you, um—I mean I know I'm not usually the voice of reason, but is this really the best time…?"

"Do you have any templars that need killing?" Arno asks, loudly.

"Arno!" Jacob stops in his tracks and twists so  _ he's  _ the one holding Arno back. "You can't just say things like that!"

"I'm an assassin," Arno says. "I can't talk about killing templars?"

"Not when it's—" Jacob struggles, trying to find the words that will make this whole mess make sense again. "Not when it's personal, Arno. I know Shay hurt you."

Arno's eyes flick sideways to where Shay stands, still and silent, and he makes an involuntary noise like a hissing snake.

"But that's…" Jacob sighs. "I grew up with this. All this assassin and templar stuff. I can't say I ever believed in it as much as my father wanted me to. Now Evie—she went crazy for this stuff as soon as father started teaching it. But I guess I mostly saw it as a way to keep fighting, keep running around and doing whatever I want. But, um—you guys are helping me see all this in a different light. You're a good man, you're the kind of assassin my father would have loved me to be. Not just because you're good at what you do but because you do it because you are good. And I don't  _ like  _ hearing you talk like this, okay?"

"Jacob—"

"I don't  _ like  _ it," Jacob says again. "Please, Arno, you're so much better than this!"

"He killed my  _ father _ !"

Shay makes a little noise of misery that makes Arno twist up his face. Then he droops a little. "Jacob," he says softly. "Can we please just do something stupid today? I don't want to talk about this right now."

Jacob glances at Shay, who won't meet his eyes. Maybe Arno doesn't need to be talked to right now. Maybe he just needs to forget.

"I don't think killing templars will help you right now," he says. "But… there's a fight club nearby. We'll get drunk and punch some people and hope that Evie doesn't find out, that sound good?"

"Sounds  _ perfect _ ," Arno says, and except for the silent, almost ghostlike presence of Shay behind them, it's just like the old days. Jacob even sees Arno laugh, once or twice. And well, that tells him maybe he's doing a pretty good job as a friend.


	103. Chapter 103

Arno doesn't have any children of his own. Not that he knows of, anyway. It's not like it's impossible. It's very definitely possible that Arno has some children somewhere, but ever since Elise he's had a hard time with relationships. Particularly the kind that last more than one night. But still—it's  _ technically  _ possible, not that Arno will ever know about them.

…he thinks he would have been a  _ good  _ father. A good husband, too, if Elise had lived. Some nights he still sits up by the fire in his empty house, imagining the way it could have been a home. They could have made themselves a family, him and Elise, they could have had children, they could have had a good life.

Instead, Elise is dead, and Arno spends most of his days alone.

Except when he visits. Obviously. In the future, where most of Arno's visitors live, the packed to the rafters safe house is a little like having the enormous family Arno's always wanted. It's like their support is something tangible, holding him up and keeping him going.

Adewale, on the other hand, is—well, he never knows what he's getting with Adewale. Most of the time Adewale won't even admit Arno is real, which makes Arno feel bizarrely like Adewale is someone that needs protecting. He's not, of course, he's a highly competent assassin, but he's hurting himself, he's  _ denying  _ visitors. Some part of Arno (the part that would have been a good father,  _ really _ , if only he'd gotten the chance) can't help wanting to take care of Adewale on some level.

And visiting Evie in India is like coming home to see a brother—which is probably a strange thing to think, since Evie is neither related to him nor male. But she is a brother in the brotherhood-of-assassins sense, and frankly the two of them have come a long way since their first meeting where Evie accused him of being a templar and tried to stab him. Visiting her is comfortable.

Which leaves Jacob. And that's where Arno's whole visitors-are-like-a-family metaphor falls apart, because Jacob is nothing at  _ all  _ like family. He's… complicated. He's just—he's Jacob, and Jacob is…

Arno blinks. Jacob is here. Or Arno is  _ there _ , more accurately, he's visiting Jacob rather than the other way around.

Jacob grins at him, but doesn't say anything because Edgar is in the room. They're in the little basement room Jacob keeps for fighting practice, both sweaty and clearly unhappy. Probably they've been fighting again.

"Can I?" Arno asks. He's sort of got a talent for making Edgar smile. More than Jacob does, sad as that might be, and they both know Edgar needs that sometimes.

Jacob nods, and Arno slips into his body. He's used to it now. They do this—sort of a lot, really. For Edgar. Honestly Arno can't remember the last time he'd visited Jacob (post-Edgar's birth) without borrowing his visitor's body for at least part of the time. Arno slips into Jacob's skin, and there's a moment where Arno isn't  _ quite _ in control of the body yet and Jacob hasn't  _ quite  _ been kicked out yet, when their minds seem to brush up against each other and Arno knows what Jacob is thinking. Or feeling, maybe. A little burst of fond excitement over Arno's arrival, tinged with irritation and worry because Edgar is being  _ Edgar _ , again, and he'd climbed out the window last night and gone running off with his friends to cause trouble somewhere. And what if he does it again tonight? What if next time something goes wrong, and Edgar gets hurt—

And then Arno takes Jacob's place in his head, and the moment passes.

"Dad," Edgar says, crossing his arms. "I thought we were going to spar. Are you even paying attention?"

"I am," Arno assures him.  “Go on.”

"Well, I was saying it's not  _ fair, _ ” Edgar says, lunging forward with his training blade—Arno parries without thinking. “Aunt Evie told me when she visited that you used to sneak off all the time when you were my age. You were  _ way  _ worse than me. Why—“ Arno strikes back at him and for a moment neither of them speaks, too focused on the fight. Edgar is getting better at fighting, Arno thinks. He can't stop the little burst of pride in his chest, and Edgar isn't even his son. After a minute or so, Edgar goes on, “Where do you get off telling me not to go sneaking off? And  _ grounding  _ me? Dad, come on!”

Arno glances at Jacob and raises his eyebrows. Jacob shrugs helplessly and says, “I didn't know what to do. I just…he’s not as good with a blade as he thinks he is. London isn't the safest place in the world for a kid that thinks he's tougher than he really is, and I just… I want him to be safe. But I can't explain, every time I try it just comes out wrong and we  _ fight… _ .” Arno nods. He knows how to handle this. He leans forward and lashes out again, and knocks Edgar’s blade from his hand. While the boy is still reeling, Arno grabs him by the shoulder and holds him still.

“You're grounded,” he says. “Because you're young and reckless and the world is  _ dangerous,  _ Edgar. I just want to keep you safe.”

“I can keep myself safe.” Edgar mutters.

“But you're my son,” Arno says. And the words come out so easily, because…no, he's  _ Jacob’s  _ son but Arno cares for him too. How many times has he done this, taken over for Jacob when he can't find the right words? He really does care for Edgar. “And I don't know what I'd do if you were hurt.”

“You'd be fine,” Edgar says.

“I'd be  _ devastated,” _ Arno says honestly. Edgar tries to look annoyed but fails miserably.  He looks sort of flattered, and Arno squeezes his shoulder. “Just stay in tonight, alright? Cause less trouble and I won't have to ground you.”

“I'll try,” Edgar says.

“Good enough,” Arno says. He lets Edgar go and steps back into a ready position. “Enough of that. Come at me again—I like the way your blade looks but you don't know what to do when I parry…”

And so it goes. Arno enjoys this practice fight, he likes the way Edgar’s surliness gives way to a kind of banter and eventually actual  _ jokes _ . He's really getting good, and Arno has no problem finding points to praise him on. By the end of the sparring match Edgar is smiling, and so is Arno and so is Jacob. Arno lets Jacob have his body back, and the first thing Jacob does is hug Edgar. The boy barely even makes a token protest. “Am I getting better?” he asks hopefully.

“You're going to be better than me soon,” Jacob says, and Edgar’s smile grows.

“I hope you know how lucky you are,” Arno tells Jacob quietly. “To have a son like this.”

“I do,” Jacob says.

“What?” Edgar asks.

“Nothing,” Jacob says. But then he pulls Arno into the hug. Once, Arno would have complained. He knows Jacob still loves him, and with Jacob  _ any  _ encouragement can be a dangerous thing. But with Edgar between them, it doesn't feel too bad. Arno snakes one hand around his—around Jacob’s son, and the other around Jacob himself.

He's thinking that maybe this isn't so bad, that maybe he could get used to this.

And he's thinking that, well… Maybe he does know where Jacob fits into his visitors-as-family metaphor. Maybe he knows  _ exactly  _ where Jacob fits.

“I love you,” Jacob whispers, and Arno’s not sure if it's meant for him or for Edgar.

Either way, he decides not to argue. Just holds Jacob a little bit tighter. 


	104. Chapter 104

Arno is coming from a fight in his own time, which means he is conveniently mid-dodge when he arrives at Jacob’s side. There’s a knife suddenly coming at him, and Arno knows he can’t be hurt on a visit but he doesn’t particularly  _ want  _ a blade through his middle, intangible or no. He steps away, out of the fight, but stays close enough that Jacob won’t have to worry about falling out of range while he fights. Arno sheathes his sword and works on catching his breath.

As he does, he takes in the fight he’s inadvertently dropped in on.

It’s not just Jacob fighting, it’s Edgar too. Their s--Jacob’s son looks to be in his mid to late teens, and Arno can’t help the anxious, almost instinctive onceover he gives to Edgar. But he looks okay. He’s sporting a fresh cut on one arm and his hair is matted with sweat (which will probably bother him more than his bleeding arm, Arno thinks with a tinge of exasperated fondness. Edgar at this age is perhaps a little too much like his father for his own good--very concerned with attracting girls and looking, to borrow a 21st century word, cool). But he’s fighting well. Arno watches as Edgar neatly blocks an incoming blow and turns it back on his attacker. The last time Arno visited, they’d worked on that move for at least an hour. It’s nice to see he’s doing it so well in a real fight now.

Next, Arno turns his attention to the half dozen men threatening the father-son pair. They’re not templars. Arno doesn’t see any of the usual insignia on their clothes. So gang members, maybe. Or ordinary street thugs. Jacob’s London, like the Paris of Arno’s time, like just about every city in every time period Arno has ever visited, has no shortage of desperate people that will turn to violence against innocents if pushed. Arno doesn’t know what these men have done wrong, but he trusts Jacob has a good reason for inserting himself and Edgar into the issue.

Finally, Arno turns his attention to Jacob. He’s not particularly worried because he already knows Jacob will be alright, Jacob is always alright--

But just as Arno looks in Jacob’s direction, Jacob  _ falls _ . Just like that, just suddenly crumples like a puppet with cut strings. Arno’s eyes go wide and he watches as if in slow motion as the man that had hit Jacob (in the head, Arno can see he’s bleeding badly) raises his gun to shoot him dead, dead,  _ dead _ .

Arno doesn’t consciously decide to throw himself into Jacob’s body. It just happens. So suddenly there’s a gun to his face and a pain in his head that’s so sharp it almost blinds him. Arno gives a ragged, involuntary gasp of pain and rolls away. His vision swims from the effort and he feels like vomiting, but the shot misses. The man goes down, Edgar’s blade cutting a sharp line across his throat, and then there are no enemies left. It’s just Edgar and Arno. And Jacob, invisible and injured on the ground a few feet away.

“Dad,” Edgar says, crouching at Arno’s side, face pinching up in reluctant worry. “Are you okay?”

“Mmph,” Arno mumbles. His head doesn’t feel right, he thinks he might be concussed. Or Jacob might be. Whatever. He presses a hand to the new injury on his head and his fingers come away sticky with blood. “Jacob.”

“What?” Edgar says.

“Jacob’s hurt,” Arno says, and he doesn’t quite feel strong enough to stand up but he scrambles over to where Jacob is crumpled on the street. He looks bad, he looks worse than Arno feels. He can hear Edgar calling questions after him, and he sounds very justifiably worried. Well, yea, he’s watching the man he thinks is his father shouting his own name and staring at the empty street like it’s important. But Arno can’t pay him any attention, he’s far too worried about Jacob. He doesn’t move until Edgar puts an arm around him and half helps, half forces him to his feet. Arno just manages to hook an arm around Jacob to drag him up with him. He thinks for a second that maybe it would just be easier to let Jacob have his body back, but Jacob’s injury is messing with his head and it’s so hard to even  _ think  _ right now…

“Carriage, dad,” Edgar says, and the next thing Arno knows they’re clambering into an empty carriage. Stolen, of course. Arno sort of fades in and out as Edgar starts driving the carriage home, but by the time they get there he’s feeling a bit better. Jacob’s still out cold, curled up on the seat next to Arno, which is a little worrisome since they technically have the same injury. But this kind of thing always seems to affect the visitor less than the person being visited, it’s like there’s a buffer between Arno’s mind and Jacob’s body, and that helps.

The point is, by the time Edgar comes to help Arno out of the carriage, he’s made a decision. He’s going to have to tell Edgar everything. He’ll have to explain about visiting, and then that’ll be the end of whatever pathetic relationship he pretends he has with Jacob’s son, because Edgar will know he’s not Jacob. But Arno has to explain that when Jacob gets his body back he’ll still be unconscious, he has to make sure Edgar is ready to help Jacob when Arno’s visit ends.

But he waits until they’re inside, until he’s managed to lay Jacob out on his bed. Edgar keeps urging Arno to lie down and rest, but Arno just keeps shaking his head and finally he manages to get Edgar to go quiet for a second.

“Listen,” he says. “ _ Listen _ , Edgar. There’s something important I have to tell you.”

“You need to rest, dad--”

“I’m not your father.”

Edgar smiles, tries to pass it off as a joke. “Pretty sure you are,” he says. “Like it or not, we both know I’m stuck with you.”

“No.” Arno tries again. “I mean, I’m not Jacob.”

“What?”

So Arno explains the best he can. Edgar’s never been good at staying quiet so he keeps interrupting with questions, but eventually they get through it. Well, mostly through it--Edgar still has more questions, apparently.

“So who are you?” he asks. He looks numb and a little bit wary. “What’s your name?”

“Arno.”

“Arno,” Edgar repeats.

“Arno Dorian.”

“And you’ve just been around,” Edgar says. “For like, my entire life? Just… watching?”

Arno looks away. “It’s not like I’m here all the time,” he says.

“But when you are here, you just watch?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes I do--I do this. I’ve borrowed your dad’s body before.”

He’s expecting Edgar to be angry. He’s  _ not  _ expecting him to laugh. “So I was right,” he says.

“About what?”

“When I was a kid,” Edgar says. “I used to feel like sometimes my dad was two people. And one of them was this… loud guy that never had time for me and didn’t know how to listen, and the other one was nice and made  _ sure  _ he had time, and taught me the sort of things I needed to know… that’s you, right?”

“I…” Arno hesitates, because he doesn’t feel quite right about letting Edgar think he’s all the good things he sees in his dad, and Jacob is all the bad. Even if part of him really, selfishly wants to.

Edgar doesn’t let him finish. He lunges at Arno (who braces, expecting to be hit) and hugs him. Arno hesitates, uncertain, but when Edgar doesn’t pull away Arno lets himself hug back. “Thank you,” Edgar says. “ _ Thank  _ you. You made things better.”

“I lost my father when I was very young,” Arno says. “And I don’t have children of my own.”

It’s not much of an explanation, but Edgar seems to understand anyway. “Sure you do,” Edgar says, and Arno points his face away in the hope that maybe,  _ maybe  _ Edgar won’t notice him crying. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

“Visiting is--it’s weird, and out of order, and I thought that since Jacob hadn’t told you, it wasn’t really my place.”

“Well from now on  _ say  _ something if you’re in his body,” Edgar says. “Please? I want to know you’re here.”

“And what if I say something but it’s  _ earlier  _ in your time?” Arno points out. “I’ll ruin things for you.”

“You’ll figure something out,” Edgar says, with absolute confidence.

Arno considers. “Two of my other visitors, they told me once that they used to have codewords. Of course they were having sex, not… whatever this is. Concept is still the same though, I suppose--”

“That’ll work,” Edgar says. “So you show up, and you say…” he hesitates, and at first Arno thinks he’s just trying to come up with a good word but then when he goes on, Arno wonders if maybe he’d been trying to work up the courage to say what he has in mind. “You could say I love you,” he whispers at last. “Dad doesn’t… I mean he says it. I’ve heard it but never when he’s acting like himself. So I think m-maybe all those times he said it, that was you, so it  _ would  _ be a good codeword--”

“Edgar--”

“I know, it’s weird, but I just suggested it because I figure it might have been you saying it already so--”

“Edgar!”

“Yea?”

“Your dad  _ does  _ love you,” Arno says. “He’s just… he has this bad habit of alienating the people he cares about.” He’s thinking of the way Jacob and Evie had fought with each other more than with templars when they first arrived in London, but also of Jacob’s struggles with Edgar and how that had led to Arno taking over his body so much in the first place. And then… he’s also thinking of the way Jacob treats  _ him _ , how he’s never once hesitated to say to  _ Arno  _ the words Edgar is so clearly eager to hear from his father.

“I guess,” Edgar mumbles.

“He does,” Arno says. “I’m absolutely certain of that. And he shows it in the ways he can.”

“Yea?” Edgar says. “Like what?”

“He used to be the most reckless man I knew,” Arno says. “He started a gang for fun, he lived on a train, he raced carriages for fun, competed in underground fight clubs. And then you were born, and he gave it all…” Arno thinks about this. “He gave most of it up so you would have somewhere stable to live. He’s training you as an assassin, trying to teach you the skills you’ll need. He does care about you.”

“Well…”

Arno takes the uncertain expression on Edgar’s face as an encouraging sign. Of course, as soon as Jacob wakes up he’ll most likely pick a fight immediately and ruin it all, but for now it’s a good sign. He can feel his visit drawing to a close, so he gives Edgar his most serious expression. “When Jacob gets his body back,” he says. “He’ll still be out cold, he’ll still be injured. So please just be nice to him, alright?”

Silence.

“Please?”

“Alright,” Edgar whispers, just as Arno’s visit comes to an end. It isn’t the most convincing ‘alright’ Arno’s ever heard, but he’ll take it.

-//-

When Jacob wakes up, he’s in his own bed, and his head is aching and bloody. He groans and sits up, and (when he can see straight) sees Edgar sitting on a chair a few feet away. Something like cold relief washes through him, and Jacob smiles through the pain in his head. “Edgar,” he says. “You’re alright.”

Edgar stands up, frowning, and crosses his arms. “You didn’t tell me,” he says.

“About what?”

The frown gets sharper. “About  _ Arno _ ,” he says, and storms away before Jacob can even begin to think of a reply.


	105. Chapter 105

"He's been asking for you," Jacob mumbles when Arno arrives. He looks… sad. Really sad, which makes something twist up guiltily inside Arno. This isn't normal for Jacob.

"Who's been asking after me?" Arno asks. No one in this time even knows about him except Jacob and Evie, so—oh. Well there's Edgar, but… Jacob wouldn't be unhappy about that, would he? Maybe he would. It's no secret that Jacob has trouble with Edgar, so maybe he's sitting there thinking he's such a failure, which is dumb because it's not like Edgar is  _ Arno's  _ son. Jacob will always, always be Edgar's father, and Arno will only ever be the pretender.

"Edgar," Jacob says. "He's very angry with me."

"What happened this time?" Arno asks. Jacob is hunched over a stained and rough wooden table in a dingy pub Arno doesn't recognize, looking so lonely and morose that Arno sits down beside him, closer than he would have normally.

"We argued," Jacob says.

"You always argue," Arno says. Jacob takes in a shuddering breath that makes Arno instantly regret his words. He tries again. "I just mean… was it worse than usual?"

"Yea," Jacob says. "He won't listen to a word I say anymore, it's like he just doesn't  _ care _ . Like I'm the shitty parent and you're the good one—"

"Which is all wrong," Arno interrupts. "I'm not  _ any  _ kind of parent, and I know you love Edgar."

"Yea," Jacob whispers. "But I'm not any good at loving him. I worked really, really hard, Arno! I tried so hard to be a good dad and he just… gives you all the credit."

Arno sits frozen, trying to figure out what to say. It's hard to apologize when he's not ashamed of anything he's done to help Edgar. But it's not like he's there all the time. Jacob is the one that’s with Edgar day in and day out, he's the one that's kept him fed and clothed and safe, the one that's done the vast majority of his training. Jacob is there for him, always. Arno is there… sometimes.

While he's still sitting there, struggling to figure out the right thing to say, Jacob mumbles something incomprehensible into his cup. "What?" Arno asks.

"Nothing," Jacob says. "It's stupid."

"Tell me anyway?" Arno asks, and Jacob hesitates but then just gives in.

"Nobody loves me," Jacob says. His face, his whole body, just droops pathetically as he says it. "Evie's gone. D'you know—do you know, at the beginning, she said she was going to India for six months. Then it was a year. Then two, and then… well, now she doesn't even talk about coming home. She's not ever going to, I don't think."

"Jacob…"

"My son hates me," Jacob says. "He wouldn't mind at all if I just shriveled up and died, except then he wouldn't be able to see  _ you _ . I'm never going to be good enough for him, no matter what I do, no matter how hard I try."

"Jacob—"

"And the man I love, he doesn't…" Jacob falters, eyes skipping away from Arno.

"Still?" Arno asks. He keeps his voice low and calm, because Jacob absolutely does not need Arno arguing with him right now.

"You thought I'd stopped loving you?" Jacob asks. He trails a finger absentmindedly through a wet spot on the table in front of him, staring at it and not at Arno.

"I thought… I mean, you don't really talk about it."

"You asked me not to," Jacob says. "Because apparently it's not enough that you can't love me, you don't even want me to love you. So I haven't said it, Arno, not for two decades, but I have not ever,  _ will not ever _ stop loving you."

They sit together in silence for a while. Jacob is staring at his mostly empty cup, looking like he wishes he was significantly drunker than he actually is. Arno is trying to figure out what he's supposed to  _ say  _ here. Finally he says, "I'm sure you're not unloved."

"Yea?" Jacob makes a sound like he's trying to laugh but he just physically can't. "Well, you're wrong."

And Arno just sits there, not arguing. Not because he thinks Jacob is right, but because he doesn't have the words to tell him why he's wrong. He wants to tell Jacob he loves him, that they're raising a child together and you don't do that with someone you don't care about. But then Jacob would leap to conclusions, he'd assume Arno means he's in love when really Arno only means…

He doesn't know what he means. But they've been visiting for decades now. Jacob had saved his life once, he'd rewritten time itself so that Arno never died at all. With Elise gone, Jacob is easily the closest and best friend in Arno's life. They're practically raising a  _ child  _ together, and it hadn't even been something they'd planned. They'd just… fallen into parenting together, as if it's the most natural thing in the world.

"Can I talk to him?" he asks.

"Edgar?" Jacob asks. When Arno nods he heaves a huge sigh and downs the rest of whatever's in his cup in one go. "Why not? He won't talk to me anyway."

So they leave the grimy pub behind and go walking slowly down the street towards Jacob's home. Just from that, Arno knows how truly terrible Jacob must be feeling. Jacob does not simply  _ walk down the street _ , not when he has the option of using the rooftops, or at least  _ running _ down the street. Now his pace could (at best) be described as an amble and (at worst) as a trudge.

But finally they get home and Arno, feeling slightly guilty, asks Jacob to borrow his body. Jacob steps out of his own body at once, so quickly that Arno barely gets a flash of Jacob's thoughts as they pass. Something dark and broody and grim that makes Arno's heart break a little bit for his friend. Then he is in Jacob's body, and feeling slightly the effects of Jacob's drinking but also of his overwhelming tiredness. Arno wants to ask if he's been sleeping, but he has more important things to do than rub Jacob's misery in his face just now.

"Edgar!" he calls. "Hey, Edgar!"

"I  _ hate  _ you!" Edgar shouts back, and Arno is reminded unhappily of the first time he'd ever met Edgar. The lonely little boy hiding in his room, calling  _ I hate you  _ because he can't say  _ please love me _ . This sounds different, angry and mean, and Arno wonders how he and Jacob had gotten it so wrong.

"It's Arno!" he calls, and there's a moment of absolute silence before Edgar comes hurrying downstairs, face hopeful.

"Really?" he asks.

"Yea," Arno says, and Edgar searches his face for a moment, almost like he's looking for some sign that the man in his father's body is  _ not _ , actually, his father. Arno doesn't wait for him to finish making up his mind. "I need to talk to you."

"Oh," Edgar says. "You sound…am I in trouble?"

"Sit down," Arno says, gesturing to the closest set of chairs.

Edgar does as he's told, but looks nervous. "What did I do?"

Arno sits down as well, and spends an uncertain moment trying to figure out the best way to phrase what he wants to say. Finally he says, "I think you've misunderstood how this all works."

"Visiting?" Edgar asks. He says the word the same way he might say  _ magic,  _ sort of hushed and reverent.

"Me and your dad," Arno corrects.

"Can we not talk about him?" Edgar asks.

"We have to," Arno says. "Because like I said, you've got it all wrong. Your dad's not some kind of monster, and I'm not the hero that comes riding in to save the day."

"But that's exactly how it is," Edgar says.

"No! Edgar, look…" he hesitates, then says, "Let me tell you a story."

Edgar eyes him uncertainly, then nods.

"This was… maybe a month ago for me," Arno says. "But it must have been at least a decade ago for you. I visited your dad, and you were there. Pretty normal day, I guess. Quiet. Your dad was working on teaching you to read, and you were starting to get  _ really  _ frustrated."

"I remember," Edgar says. "It took me a really long time to learn to read. Dad's not a great teacher."

Jacob makes a sad noise that goes unheard by Edgar.

"Well I offered to take over for a while," Arno says, sidestepping that whole comment. "And I'll be honest, I wasn't doing any better than your dad was. I've never had to teach anyone to read before. And you were just getting more and more frustrated and I said..." he hesitates. He's not particularly proud of this, but he hadn't been thinking. "I said maybe you weren't ready to read yet, and we should try again later. And I didn't mean that you were stupid or anything, but I think you heard it that way." Arno pauses again, remembering the way Edgar's face had crumpled up in misery and failure. "I didn't know what to do, I just sat there frozen until your dad took over and he knew what to say."

"That doesn't sound like dad," Edgar says, but he sounds a bit uncertain. "He's always putting his foot in his mouth."

"Well, yea," Arno says, with such frankness that Edgar gives a little laugh and even Jacob almost smiles. "More than most people, definitely. But not all the time. Sometimes—like that day— _ I'm  _ the one that messes up, and he's the one that cleans up after me. Edgar, I care about you a lot. You're a good kid, and I want to see good things happen to you. I could not be more proud of the things you've accomplished if you were my own son. But the thing is your dad really, absolutely loves you. And sometimes he messes up, sure, but he gets a lot more right."

"I want to talk to him," Jacob says suddenly.

"And he's got something he wants to tell you," Arno says to Edgar. "Alright?"

Edgar nods just a fraction, and Arno steps out of Jacob.

"Dad?" Edgar says, as Jacob's posture shifts. Obviously he's learning to recognize the signs.

"Yea," Jacob says. "Edgar, look, Arno's good at a lot of things but sometimes he kind of sucks at getting to the point."

"Hey," Arno protests, rather feebly.

"What's the point, then?" Edgar asks, almost smiling.

"The point is we're trying to figure this out together, and neither of us is perfect but we're trying. And what you need to know is that you have two imperfect parents that love you absolutely."

"I'm not really a parent," Arno protests, only barely above a whisper. " _ You're  _ his dad…"

But Edgar, after a brief hesitation, says "I know."

"We're a family," Jacob says, looking hopefully back at Arno. "Even if…" he trails off but Arno knows what he means. And just at this moment, he almost wishes he could reassure Jacob, that he could say 'yes, actually, I do love you.'

But he can't, he can't even let himself consider that, not after all this time. And not when he still can't even  _ think _ the word love without seeing Elise's face in his mind's eye. So he just steps closer, puts one arm around Edgar (although he knows the boy won't be able to feel him) and squeezes Jacob's shoulder with his other hand.

"Do you think you can live with that?" Jacob asks, and Arno catches the desperate longing in his voice. "With me?"

"I think so," Edgar says.  _ His  _ voice is shaking. "Dad, I'm sorry—"

And that's when Jacob sweeps him up in a rib crushing bear hug, and does not stop until Edgar is laughing and whining all at once, and Arno reminds him that yes, actually, Edgar is going to have to breathe at some point.

Then the visit ends, and Arno is sent home. But this time he feels oddly empty. Like some part of him has been left behind, with his...with his family.


	106. Chapter 106

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Taking a break from the Jacob-Arno parenting adventures for a moment, have an Adewale scene.
> 
> Also I apologize if there's any errors in this chapter, I, um... wrote it during a four hour Skyrim marathon session whenever I had to wait on a loading screen.

Adewale’s whole body is tense with expectant nerves. He had spent his childhood in captivity, and he does not relish the thought of returning to that life. He is afraid, but more angry than afraid and more determined than angry.

He will not allow this to happen, he _will not_.

Now if only he could find a way out—Adewale will fight and die for his freedom of given a chance, but he is not entirely sure he will ever get that chance. He is chained, under guard, and most importantly alone. What hope does he have of taking out his guards without so much as a second blade fighting alongside him?

“That man.”

Adewale turns sharply at the sound of a voice in his ear. The man there is a stranger, wearing strange clothes and a thoughtful frown. “What?” Adewale asks.

“If you are looking for an ally, you could do no better than the man beside you.”

Adewale looks away from the stranger to cast a skeptical look at the man chained next to him. He’s drenched through and out cold. His clothes fit badly and are too fine for a man with his rough look—they are quite obviously stolen. A more ragged, dingy, shell of a man would be difficult to imagine, and Adewale cannot imagine what use he could be.

“Who are you?” Adewale asks, because if he is going to inform this stranger (as Adewale very badly wants to) that his friend is more likely to be a burden than a help, it might be a good idea to make sure this stranger isn't someone that can make life worse for Adewale if he gets offended.

“Connor,” the man says.

Well that's vague enough to tell Adewale absolutely nothing. “Well then, Connor,” he says. “Who is this man to you? And why would I want him of all people as an ally?”

Connor does not smile. Adewale would have been surprised to see him do so, his face looks so serious. “He is my—he is a relative,” he says. “His name is Edward. And I know, he looks rough. And sounds rough, and…well, the less said about the smell, the better. But under it all, he is loyal. He is a good man, even if…” Connor gives a long suffering sigh. “Even if he sometimes needs some encouragement to show that side of himself.”

It is a less than ringing endorsement. “But you truly think he is worth putting my trust in?” Adewale asks. “I can't afford to get this wrong.”

“I do,” Connor says, without hesitation.

But still, Adewale catches himself wavering. “Why don't you help?” he asks. “You're free already, and you seem more trustworthy than he does.” He gestures to his still unconscious neighbor.

“Well to start with,” Connor says, gesturing to the bar holding both Adewale and Edward down. “Neither of you _can_ go free without the other.”

This is, of course, true.

“And besides,” Connor adds. “I'm not really here.”

He looks so serious, so utterly convinced that what he's said is true, that Adewale does not for a single moment consider that he might be joking. No—clearly, he is insane.

“Oh,” he says, attention wavering. He half turns away from Connor, focusing instead on Edward—he might not look like much, but for the moment at least, he does not quite look mad. A criminal, almost definitely, but Adewale has worked with men like that before.

By the time Edward is awake and the two of them are free, Adewale has lost sight of Connor. By the time they are sailing away in a… in _their_ ship, Adewale has forgotten him completely.


	107. Chapter 107

Evie looks just about ready to drop off her feet when Arno arrives to visit—she gives him a tired smile and Arno grins back. The grin only gets larger when he realizes she's holding an infant. "Is that your daughter?" he asks.

"What?" Evie shakes her head no. "This is Jacob's granddaughter."

"Jacob has a granddaughter?" Arno asks, stepping forward eagerly. "Is it—she's Edgar's child?"

Evie nods, and looks down at her grandniece just then so she misses the way Arno is beaming fit to burst, the way he's practically bouncing with excitement. "I've been up with his wife and the midwife most of the night. It was definitely worth it, though."

"I thought you looked tired," Arno says.

"Exhausted," Evie says. "But I wasn't the one doing all the work, so I offered to watch the child while she naps."

"Where's Edgar?"

"Outside," Evie says. "I think he's having a fatherhood related panic attack." She yawns hugely and looks up at him. "Listen Arno, I hate to ask but I'm dead tired. Would you mind taking my body and watching the baby for a little while? I just…"

"I'd love to," Arno says earnestly. "You should get some sleep while you have the chance." She nods and gestures Arno over—he steps into her body, and some part of his mind is distantly surprised at how similar it feels to borrowing Jacob's. But mostly he's preoccupied with looking down at the little girl that Evie's left him holding. Evie gives him a grateful pat on the shoulder, announces that she's going to just 'rest her eyes for a minute,' and promptly falls asleep.

Arno sits down nearby, still marveling at the feel of this tiny little person in his arms. She's heavier than he would have expected. Not heavy like she's overweight, but there's a sort of… permanence to her that makes Arno feel very serious and solemn and just  _ lucky  _ to be sitting here, holding her.

A door opens nearby and then closes again, and Arno looks up at the sound of someone calling his name. Then he smiles. Well—more. Smiles  _ more _ , because he'd already been smiling.

"Edgar," he says. "I didn't expect you'd recognize me."

"Of course I do," Edgar says. He sounds only half offended, and he's looking more at his daughter than at Arno. "It's the way you hold yourself. And anyway, I've seen you in dad's body enough times, I'm used to the differences. Where's Aunt Evie?"

"Sleeping," Arno says.

"Ah." Edgar drops his voice to a whisper. "I'll try not to wake her then."

Arno glances back at Evie, dead to the world. "She really looks like she needs it," he agrees. Then he looks back at Edgar, bracing himself for an answer he's not sure he wants to hear. "Where's Jacob?" he asks. "Shouldn't he be here?"

Edgar fidgets a little. "He's having… it's a bad day," he says.

"Oh." Arno knows exactly what Edgar is talking about—Jacob's time as Jack's prisoner had left him with all kinds of scars, some physical, some mental. Desmond had once compared it to PTSD, which hadn't helped much even after he explained what it was. It's nothing anyone in this century knows how to treat, so they can't do anything to help when Jacob's mind takes him back to Jack.

"I'm going to take Lydia round to see him this afternoon," Edgar says. "Do you think that would help?"

"I don't think it would hurt," Arno says encouragingly. Then—"Lydia? Is that her name?"

Edgar nods. "It took us ages to decide," he says. "And we're still trying to come up with a middle name."

"Any ideas?" Arno asks. He settles himself more comfortably in his chair—he's sort of loving this moment. Just sitting here, talking to Edgar, holding the tiny Lydia.

"Well… sort of," Edgar says. "I mean, Lydia was my wife's idea. It was her mum's middle name, and they were close before she died, so it seemed to fit. But then she decided it would be fair if I picked the middle name, only I don't  _ know  _ my mum, and I guess I could name her for Aunt Evie or something but it feels weird naming her for someone that's still alive, so I thought…maybe I could name her for someone important in your life?"

"Why me?" Arno asks.

Edgar rolls his eyes. "Because when I asked dad for ideas, he only had stupid suggestions. But I thought, since I'm as much your son as his—"

"Edgar…"

"I thought that asking you might be a better idea anyway," Edgar presses on, ignoring Arno's standard protest. "She's your granddaughter too, and no one else is ever going to know it, so… do you have a sister you really like? Or we could name her for  _ your  _ mum."

"She left when I was very young," Arno says, staring down at Lydia. "I don't really remember her. And I don't have sisters."

"Oh," Edgar says.

"But…" he hesitates. "There was this woman that was very important to me when I was young. I was…am—I don't know. Was? In love with her, but she died."

"What was her name?" Edgar asks.

Another long pause. "Elise."

Edgar gives this a respectful few moments of silence, then says, "Can I use the name?"

"I think… I'd like you to," Arno says. Because… yes. He's been carrying Elise around inside him for a long time, the memories and the pain, trying to hold onto her, clinging ever more tightly to memories that grow dimmer with every year that passes. It would be better, far better, to pass the name on to someone else that will be able to breathe new life into it. It feels a little bit like… letting go. Moving on. Arno lets out a breath of relief that's so long and deep he almost thinks he's been holding it since the day Elise died.

And—well, who is he kidding? He wouldn't have considered this for any girl in the world other than Edgar's daughter.

Finally, after another long silence, Arno starts. "You probably want to hold her," he says, awkwardly offering Edgar's daughter to him.

"Yea," Edgar admits, taking Lydia at once. "I was thinking, do you want to come with me when I take Lydia to see dad?"

"I can't," Arno says. "I have to stay close to…"

He glances over his shoulder and comes face to face with… Evie. Awake, and not exactly looking pleased. "Hi, Evie," he says.

"So—Edgar knows about visiting?" Evie asks.

"She's awake?" Edgar asks. He sort of squints in the direction Arno's facing, as if that's going to magically make him see her.

"He knows about  _ you _ ?" Evie adds.

"Jacob didn't tell you?" Arno asks, a little weakly.

"No," Evie says.

"Well to be fair, he probably didn't do it maliciously," Arno says. "He probably just honestly forgot."

"Probably," Evie agrees, rolling her eyes. "He also neglected to mention that he's apparently handed over fathering duties to you?"

"Not exactly," Arno says.

"I just heard him refer to Lydia as  _ your  _ granddaughter."

"We're just kind of parenting together," Arno says.

"But… why?"

Arno shrugs and half smiles. "Because I'm very lucky."

-//-

He can tell that Evie doesn't really get it. That's fine, it had taken him and Jacob and Edgar enough time to figure it out between the three of them. But she does agree to come with them to see Jacob, and she even lets Arno keep her body during the trip over, so he can speak with Edgar. Arno's visits are infrequent enough that there's always something to talk about, and today their easy, cheerful conversation makes the trip seem to take no time at all.

Inside, Jacob is lying sideways on his bed, back to the bedroom door—he jumps when they come in, and pushes himself up so he's sitting. For a moment, Arno sees the dead look in his eyes, the hollow kind of horror that Jack had left for Jacob, and something in him aches. There are days when he thinks he'd give anything to never know that pain himself, and other days when he thinks he'd give anything to take some of it off Jacob's shoulders.

Then Jacob sees Lydia, and his eyes light up. "You had your baby!" he says, reaching for her—Edgar hands her over with only a brief 'don't drop her.' "I can't believe I  _ missed  _ it. I'm so sorry, Edgar."

"It's fine," Edgar says. "Arno made it."

"Always showing me up," Jacob says, staring at Lydia. She uncurls her hand like in a slow movement that makes it look like she's waving. Jacob waves back with obvious delight.

"It's not difficult," Arno teases, and Jacob responds by sticking his tongue out. Arno glances at Edgar, who looks as relieved as he's feeling to see Jacob snap out of his funk so easily.

"Jacob," Evie calls.

"What?"

"Do you think there's anything you might have forgotten to tell me?" she asks.

"Um…no…?"

"She's upset you didn't tell her Edgar knows about visiting," Arno says.

"Of course he knows," Jacob says blankly. "He's known for  _ ages _ ."

"Then why didn't you tell me?" Evie demands. They bicker for a while, and the familiar pattern of it seems to revive Jacob even more. But eventually Evie throws her hands up and gives in. She turns instead to Arno. "I suppose I should thank you for looking after my brother and my nephew," she says.

"We're looking after each other," Arno says. That's what family does. Evie smiles.

Behind them, Jacob and Edgar are sitting together on the bed, Jacob still holding Lydia. "You're going to be a good dad," Jacob says.

"Well, yea," Edgar says. "Way better than you. I'm not going to make any of your mistakes."

Ten years ago, he might have  _ meant  _ that. Now, Jacob laughs in response. "Of course you are," he says. "And then you're going to make loads more of your own."

"Probably," Edgar admits.

Lydia starts fussing then, and Jacob says, "She must be getting hungry—you should probably take her home."

"Probably," Edgar says, but he hesitates and doesn't actually go until he's promised to come back, soon. Then he hugs Jacob, hugs Arno, waves at Evie when Arno points out where she's standing, and leaves.

When he's gone, Evie retakes her body from Arno and gives the pair of them a nonplussed smile. "I won't pretend I understand how this all works," she says. "But I'm glad it does. Good for you. You're lucky."

"I know," Arno agrees. Because somehow he's just become a  _ grandfather _ , and that shouldn't even be possible. He wants to just… stay here, with these people he cares about more than any other, with his family.

But then he is back in his own time, and the familiar, lonely ache is crushing his chest.


	108. Chapter 108

Jacob has never been much good with family, apart from maybe Evie, and that's different because she's Evie.  But apart from her—well, he'd fought with his father. Fallen in love with a man that died decades, ages, ago. He is only his son’s  _ second  _ favorite father.

And somehow, for some reason, someone has decided he is the best possible person to watch his granddaughter for a month while her parents are away. What is he supposed to do with a little girl? But suddenly here is Lydia, five years old and completely uninterested in him, kneeling on a chair at the kitchen table so she can read the book she's brought with her. Reading. Evie had been reading at five, but Jacob certainly hadn't.

He hovers uncertainly in the doorway until Lydia looks up at him. “What's wrong, granddad?”

“Nothing,” he says, quickly stretching his expression into a smile.

“Are you sure?” Lydia asks. “Dad says you're getting older and sometimes you need looking after.”

“I do not,” Jacob objects. “And when you get home, you can just tell him I'm getting  _ younger _ .”

Lydia eyes him and manages a skeptical “Okay, granddad.”

“What else did your dad tell you?” Jacob asks.

“He said to ask if Arno’s here,” Lydia answers promptly. “Is he, granddad?”

“Not today,” Jacob says, and Lydia slumps a little. “Sorry.”

“I wanted to meet him,” she says.

“I'm sure you will,” he says. “I know he wants to meet you too.”

She shrugs and offers a brave little smile, then goes back to her book.

So Jacob leaves her to her reading and goes upstairs to write the handful of letters he's been putting off. There are three or four pieces of assassin business he needs to take care of. He hasn't written to Evie in nearly two months (visited her, yes, but she says she likes reading what he has to say anyway). And then there's his letter to Arno.

It's a habit he'd taken up years ago, after Evie first left for India. Every week, no matter what else is going on in his life, he writes a letter to Arno. Long letters, usually, everything he wants to tell Arno that he doesn't get the chance to say during visits. The letters are long because he wants to tell Arno everything, and no visit will ever be long enough for that.

And then, once he has written the letters, Jacob burns them. Because Arno is dead. And because even if he were alive, he wouldn't want this. It had hurt, once. Jacob used to watch the fire eat at every letter he wrote, unable to walk away until he's seen the edges of the paper curl up and go black, until the letters are nothing but ash. Now he tosses them in the flames without even looking.

Jacob has grown old, loving Arno. He'd fallen recklessly in love at twenty one, when he was nothing but a child, really. And that love has grown and matured with him, into something old and comfortable. It's not like it used to be when Jacob was a young man, it's not tinged with the painful, impossible hope that if he just tries hard enough, if he just asks enough times, Arno will love him back. He'll forget about Elise, and he'll…

No. Jacob has long since accepted the fact that Arno will always belong to someone else. He has stopped asking Arno to love him back. He doesn't use the word anymore. He doesn't talk about Arno any more than he talks about his other visitors. He just loves, with all his heart and all his soul, quiet and steadfast and constant.

But maybe he still smiles a little at times like this, when he looks up and realizes that he's visiting Arno. They're in the country house Arno had moved to when he started to grow old (and he is so old now, way older than Jacob), a quiet place where he sees very few people, just the boy that helps him with the heavy lifting he's got too stiff to manage himself.

Arno is leaning on the fence next to the chickens, watching them cluck and squawk at each other, and Jacob joins him in silence. As a younger man, he might have leaned against Arno, used this as an excuse to touch him. An elbow, a shoulder. Anything, just to feel Arno's skin against his and pretend that some part of Arno belongs to him. Now he doesn't. Jacob is long past believing they're going to have a happy ending together, there's no use in hurting them both.

"You never told me how stupid I was," Arno says. "You tell everyone else when they're being an idiot, but you didn't tell me."

"I don't think you're an idiot," Jacob says.

"Well I am," Arno says. "I'm an idiot because I'm eighty four years old and I've never moved past Elise."

"That's not stupid," Jacob says. It's frustrating and painful but not  _ stupid.  _ "You weren't ready."

"I'm old," Arno says. "I'm going to die soon, and I have nothing. No family. No children. I've wasted my life." For a moment, there is no sound around them but the chickens and the wind.

“I thought…” Jacob is used to Arno denying that he is a parent to Edgar, but somehow this sounds different. Jacob knows, he can tell, that Arno  _ wants _ to be a father to Edgar, and over the years his protests have seemed to gradually grow weaker and more perfunctory. And now, suddenly he's standing here like he's all alone in the world, like he doesn't have a family. Messed up and strange but family nonetheless. “I thought you had us. Me and Edgar.”

Arno’s self control slips. He lets out a sob that shakes his thin, frail body, and clenches his hands in a vice grip around the fence in front of him.  “But I  _ don't _ ,” he says. “I have visits and they're wonderful and I just feel so… So wanted and needed and… And  _ loved.  _ But then the visit always ends, and I'm back here and it hurts.” There are tears on his face now and Jacob is aching to hold him, but it wouldn't help Arno. Jacob forces himself to stay completely still until Arno shudders his way to some level of composure.

“It was all I ever wanted, you know? A family. When I was young I always thought that meant Elise, but then she died, and I never let myself move on.”

Jacob has noticed this.

“But then you, and Edgar, and Lydia… Jacob, I'm old. I'm  _ dying—“ _

“No!”

“Yes. And all I want is to die with my family around me but I can't. In my time you're a child, you have no idea who I am and I'm sure you would care even less. Our son won't be born for decades and I keep thinking—I know it's stupid but I keep thinking that if I just pack up and head for England, that you'll be there—”

“Oh, Arno…”

“When the truth is, there's nowhere I can go on this Earth and find my family.”

And then Arno surprises— _ shocks  _ Jacob by turning into him, seeking the comfort Jacob is so desperate to offer. Arno feels unbelievably frail in Jacob’s arms, a tiny old man bent under the weight of a lifetime of loneliness. He stays silent, holding Arno and trying to stay strong for him. Finally, when he thinks Arno is calm enough for more conversation, he says, “You could still go find me. Even if I am just a kid in this time, I'm sure I'd be happy to see you.”

“You'd be an utter brat,” Arno says. His face is pressed up against Jacob’s shoulder, but even if his voice is muffled his smile comes through perfectly clear. “And we both know it.”

“Well, yea,” Jacob agrees. “Probably. But that's what you love about me.” He winces at the words, feeling something claw at his chest. “Sorry, I didn't mean—“

“Yea,” Arno interrupts. “Yea it is.”

Jacob leans away from Arno, just enough to see his face, then freezes. He's suddenly terrified that Arno will see his expression and be able to read his thoughts like an open book. "If you're saying what I think you're saying," he says. "Then please stop. Don't. When we were younger, I would have given anything to be with you, Arno, and you know that. Don't dangle it in front of me when we're both running out of time."

"I've been thinking," Arno says, and he holds out his hand, palm up, facing Jacob. When Jacob looks down, he sees Arno's Shard resting there. "These things are supposed to bring us back, right? A second chance, a new life. But I'm not sure I want one, if I'm going to spend it the same way I spent this one. Alone and miserable. I think it… I would feel better going into this second life if I knew someone was waiting for me on the other side."

"Someone," Jacob repeats. "Someone in particular, or just… anyone?"

"My best friend," Arno says. "The one person that's always been there, who has never missed an opportunity to show me how much they care about me."

"Just to be clear," Jacob says. "Are you talking about me? Are you saying—"

"I'm saying that if we do get a second chance, I don't want to waste it. I want to do things right, I want to be happy. I want  _ you. _ ”

"But you never said—you—" Jacob feels twenty one years old again, hope clawing at his chest and tears pricking at his eyes. "Really?"

"I don't know if we'll work," Arno says. "But I want to try."

In the street outside the burning Alhambra, many decades ago, Jacob had been the one to reach out and kiss Arno. Now, Arno carefully stows his Shard back in his pocket, and reaches his hand out to hold Jacob's. Jacob squeezes it, and it’s old and wrinkled, weathered by the many years of life he has passed through to get here. It is not the passionate embrace he had dreamed of when he was twenty one. They don't even kiss. But here he is with his hand in Arno's, Arno’s head resting on his shoulder, and Arno is saying, "I love you."

"Say it again?" Jacob asks.

"I love you," Arno repeats.

Jacob smiles. "I love you, too," he says, and Arno laughs.

"I know."

"We'll get it right, next time," Jacob says. "If this works. If we come back—if we get a second life, we'll love each other all the way through."

"I'll see you there," Arno says. "Try not to be late."

"I will be," Jacob says.

There's a beat of confused silence, then Arno says, "Wait, what?"

Jacob shrugs. "Because—you know. Late is a euphemism for dead? Like you'd say 'the late so and so,' or whatever? And…" Arno's giving him a disbelieving look, eyebrows slowly crawling their way up his forehead. "And we're going to have to die to get this second chance."

"Jacob," Arno says. "You do realize we were having a moment, don't you?"

"Sorry."

"I know for a fact that you've been waiting decades for this moment, and you interrupt it for a joke that only works in English? Which is a language I'm not even fluent in?"

Jacob gives Arno a crooked smile. "Trust me. It was funny."

The last thing he hears before the visit ends is Arno's fond snort of laughter, and the last thing he feels is Arno's hand squeezing his.


	109. Chapter 109

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So last chapter was happy for Jacob and Arno, clearly they need to be sad now.
> 
> Also I kind of like the thought that Arno actually did go looking for Jacob in his own time before he died.

Fifty years before Jacob finally,  _ finally  _ got his promise of a happy ending (although, thanks to the peculiarities of visiting, it is in fact less than three months  _ after _ Arno makes that promise to him) he is nothing but a grubby little boy with a talent for getting himself into every kind of trouble imaginable.

And today, he has his eyes fixed on the funny old man that lives down the street. He's foreign (Evie says French, and she's probably right because she's  _ usually  _ right—she's smarter than Jacob but he can spit farther than her so that's okay), and he's old, like way older than Jacob thought a person could even get. He lives all by himself except for the woman that helps him with his cleaning (because, again, he is  _ old _ ) and does his shopping for him (because he doesn't speak any English at all).

"Jacob," Evie whines, trailing after him as he goes half running up the road. He keeps stopping every time someone passes so he won't look too much like he's planning to make trouble. "I don't wanna come!"

"Then stay at home," Jacob says. "Don't be such a baby!"

"I'm not a  _ baby _ ," Evie says. "I'm older than you."

"Are not," Jacob says, forgetting his plans for a second to spin around and face her. "We're twins, dummy."

Evie chews on her lip, thinking this over. "I'm four minutes older than you," she says at last, and Jacob's mouth falls open with indignant surprise.

"That doesn't count!"

"It does!" She sticks out her tongue. "And I'm taller anyway."

"Nuh uh," Jacob mumbles. He tries to stand on his toes without her noticing.

She notices at once, and they spend a couple of minutes scuffling on the side of the road and trying to step on each other's feet. Finally Evie gives up and steps back, pushing her hair impatiently out of her face. "Come on, Jacob," she says. "Let's just go home. I don't want to get in trouble today."

"We're not going to get in trouble," Jacob promises. "I just want to peek in the window."

"Why?"

"Because I'm not supposed to," Jacob says. "Come on, please?"

"Fine," Evie says, and Jacob grabs her hand before he goes back to running down the street. They stop just outside the old man's house and Jacob stands on his toes to peek in the window. Inside there's a disappointingly ordinary room, empty at the moment, that looks like it's probably a kitchen.

Jacob frowns. That's… disappointing. No fun at all, really. He steps back onto the road and Evie follows, looking relieved.

Then Jacob picks up a rock and throws it right through the old man's window, and Evie goes from relieved to horrified in about a second. "Jacob!" she shouts, pushing at his shoulders. "That was bad!"

Jacob grins and starts to say something, but then the door opens and the old man comes out. "Uh oh."

"See?" Evie hisses. "Now you're in trouble."

"Me? We're both in trouble!"

"You broke the window!"

"Yea, but—" Since when do they not do  _ everything  _ together, getting in trouble included? "Come on," Jacob says instead. "Run!"

Evie makes a frustrated little noise and they start running. Only they don't get very far before Jacob trips on something and he just  _ falls _ , really hard.

"Jacob—"

"Go!"

"But…" she looks like she wants to stay with him, but then she looks up and her face goes white—Jacob twists around to see what she's looking at, and sees the old man heading toward them, a sharp frown on his face.

"Go," Jacob urges her again. His palms are all cut up and gritty, and his whole left knee is scraped up and bloody. He knows he can't run right now but… but maybe Evie's right, they don't  _ both  _ have to get in trouble. "Go, go, go!"

She goes, at last, and Jacob turns around without standing and tries to look like he's not scared of how much trouble he's going to get into.

The old man takes his time hobbling toward Jacob, which only makes it worse. Jacob can't stop looking at the old man's face, which looks… not exactly angry but kind of like he's trying not to laugh. It makes Jacob feel kind of crumpled up and guilty inside. He doesn't  _ like  _ being laughed at.

Finally, the old man reaches Jacob and kneels down in front of him. He makes a little grimace like Jacob's grandmother does when she has to bend too much.

"I didn't do it," Jacob blurts out, fidgeting away as the old man gives his still bleeding leg a look of serious consideration. "I swear, I didn't break your window, I just—it was a magic rock, see, and it went  _ right  _ through the window, it was really, really weird but I didn't do it I promise—"

The old man shushes him and pulls his hands toward him to examine those. Jacob's stream of words cuts off, not because he'd been told to be quiet (that never works) but because it hurts where the old man is holding his hands. He whimpers a little, screwing up his face so he won't cry.

The old man's face softens, and he gets to his feet. He sort of creaks a little, then says something French. Jacob thinks he's asking him to come with him somewhere, because he holds his hand out to Jacob. And Jacob doesn't know what makes him take that hand, but the look in the old man's eyes has changed. He doesn't look like he's laughing at Jacob anymore. He looks sort of like Jacob's grandmother looks when she's given up trying to make him behave.  _ 'Boys will be boys,'  _ she says then.  _ 'And Jacob will be Jacob.' _

Jacob likes being Jacob, loud and messy and always in trouble. And he likes when other people are okay with him being Jacob. This guy, even though he  _ should  _ be angry with Jacob for breaking his window, looks like maybe he's okay with it. So Jacob takes the old man's hand and drags himself to his feet. The two of them limp down the road together until they get back to the old man's house. The old man looks at his window for a long time, then back down at Jacob. Jacob squirms.

They end up inside the old man's kitchen, and Jacob sits in a chair with his leg smearing blood everywhere, and watches the old man hobble around looking for bandages. "You don't have to do that," Jacob pipes up, even though he's pretty sure the old man can't understand anything he says. "Look, I get hurt lots." He holds his elbow up so the old man can see where it got all banged up when he was chasing Evie and ran into a wall.

The old man only shakes his head and tsks and comes to sit next to Jacob. His wrinkly old hands are quick and sure when he wraps the bandages around Jacob's knee, tight enough to stop the bleeding but not so tight it will hurt. He looks like he does this pretty often. "Do you get hurt lots too?"

And so the conversation goes, with Jacob talking away and the old man clearly not understanding a single word. But a conversation where he gets to do all the talking is pretty much the best kind of conversation Jacob can think of, and he stays the whole afternoon, until finally it gets close to suppertime and he goes running (or… wobbling, really, his knee still hurts) back home.

And the next weekend, he goes back to help the old man fix his window (even though he's not allowed to do much, because he'll just break the glass or hurt himself). And the weekend after that, he comes to help him with his garden (although mostly he just plays in the mud), and the weekend after that—

He goes to the old man's house, and finds the woman that usually helps him with the cleaning instead. "Hey," Jacob says. "Hey, where's the old man?"

She looks at him like grownups always look at him, like he's just getting in the way. (Except the old man never looks at him like that, does he?) "Mr. Dorian passed away," she says. "Two nights ago."

Jacob looks at the house, then back at the woman. Mr. Dorian—is that the old man's name? "Passed away," he says. "Does that mean… did he die?" Because that's his grandmother says when she talks about his mother. And she's dead.

"Well, yes," the woman says.

"But that means—where did he go?" Jacob asks.

"He left money to have his body shipped back to France," the woman says, in the sort of voice that implies she has no  _ idea  _ why anyone would want to go to France, even after they were already dead. "So I suppose that's where he's going."

"But… I don't mean his body," Jacob says. "I mean… where does  _ he  _ go?"

She gives him another look. This woman has a lot of mean looks, and Jacob wonders why the old man… why Mr. Dorian decided to hire  _ her _ . This look, for example, says she doesn't know how she got stuck in this conversation in the first place, and she just wants it to stop. "I'm not your mother," she says. "So go find yours and ask her." She walks off and leaves Jacob standing on the side of the road, confused and alone.

"But I don't have a mother," he says, even though she's already too far away to hear. "She passed away too."

He stays there a little longer, staring at the window he'd broken and then sort of helped to fix. Or watched while someone else fixed, anyway. And it's not fair, it's not  _ fair _ , he was just starting to make a friend and now his friend is gone. He wants Mr. Dorian to come back but he can't come back 'cause he's  _ dead _ —

Jacob picks up a rock and throws it as hard as he can through the recently repaired window. He feels cold and brittle, like something's going to break inside him if he doesn't break something else first. The window shatters (behind him, the angry woman with the mean looks shrieks and calls him a rude word). Jacob blows a raspberry at her and goes running off as fast as he can go.

He's stops at last, shaking, hands balled up into fists. And he hadn't thought there was anyone with him but suddenly there's a little hand on his shoulder, and when he turns around there's a boy the same age as him standing right there. "Hey," he says, and his voice sounds slightly worried. "Are you, um… are you okay?"

"Course I am," Jacob says. "I'm fine."

"You're crying," the boy says, and when Jacob touches his face he realizes he is.

"A friend of mine died," he says. "Only I didn't know we were friends, really, until he was gone and now I don't want him to be dead."

"Oh," the boy says. "Um… I'm sorry."

Jacob shrugs, scrubbing tears away from his face. "I'm okay," he insists.

"If you say so," the boy says. He gives Jacob a big smile. "I know I'm not the same," he says. "But I'll be your friend if you want."

"We can be friends," Jacob says hopefully. "I'm Jacob."

"I'm Arno," his new friend says. "And, um… I don't know how long I can stay, because I live really far away, I think. But we'll still be friends, okay?"

"Okay," Jacob agrees. And he feels a little bit better, a little bit less like he might break into pieces. He slings an arm around Arno's shoulders. "Now let's go."

"Go where?" Arno asks, even as he lets Jacob lead him away.

"Dunno," Jacob says. "To do something stupid, I guess."


	110. Chapter 110

"Why don't you wear robes?" Jacob asks Desmond on one visit.

"What?" Desmond is distracted with his…whatever Grace is supposed to be to him. Half-sister? Third-sister? He half glances up from where the child is fussing in his arm, then looks back down at her.

"Everyone else wears robes," Jacob says. "When I was a kid, my father sat me down and gave me this long talk about how wearing the robes were important, and a mark of who we are and what we stand for and whatever—" He frowns. "Then I think it turned into a lecture about how I never do my own laundry."

"You should do your own laundry," Desmond says. "Listen, Jacob, I don't mean to interrupt but I'm supposed to be babysitting—"

"Well I mean we had that conversation years ago," Jacob says, ignoring Desmond's attempt at ending the conversation. "I do my own laundry  _ now _ because I learned the hard way how hard it is to get bloodstains out of clothes. And now that Evie's in India, there's no one to help—" He cuts himself off and heaves a sigh. "Well, I do my own laundry."

"Sorry," Desmond mutters. Jacob accepts this at face value because Desmond must be missing her too. Grace quiets at last and Desmond turns back to Jacob. "So…what were you asking about robes?"

"What—oh. Right." He gestures to Desmond. "Why don't you wear robes?"

"Because no one wears robes in this century, I guess," Desmond says. "I'd stick out."

"Lucky you," Jacob says. "They're a pain."

"It could be worse," Desmond says.

"Yea? How?"

"Well—I mean, you could have done what Ezio did. He spent years and years trying to get access to this set of robes that were supposed to be Altair's, and in the end it turns out they weren’t even his robes."

"Hang on—"

They both look up to see Ezio stopped in the doorway, frowning. "What do you mean, those weren't Altair's robes?"

"Come on," Desmond says. "Did you ever see Altair wearing them?"

Ezio opens his mouth, but doesn't say anything. Jacob can see him thinking hard. "I can't  _ believe  _ it," he says at last. "He let me put all that effort into getting those robes, and they weren't even his!"

"Why would the robes of a twelfth century middle eastern assassin end up in Italy three hundred years later?" Desmond asks. "How would the robes even have lasted that long?"

Ezio makes a dramatically horrified face and hurries away. Jacob assumes he's going to complain to Altair.

"I don't blame him," Jacob says after a few minutes. "If I could get ahold of a set of  _ Arno's  _ robes, I'd never take them off."

"I hope you'd at least take them off to wash them," Desmond says, grinning. "I hear you do your own laundry these days." Jacob fakes a smile too, pretending he'd only meant it as a joke, but—well, yea. He can understand why Ezio would go to such lengths to wear the robes of a man he admires and cares for. To feel like that man is with him when he's not…

Grace, who has gradually been settling down, abruptly starts crying again. Jacob is not sorry to let the conversation turn to the subject of kids. Not that Jacob knows anything about them, but it's something to talk about. Something safer than missing a person so much you'd wear their robes just to feel close to them.

 

Jacob pastes on a smile and tries to sound like he knows something about infants, and feels suddenly very sad and pathetic.


	111. Chapter 111

Arno is curled up on his bed, crying and wallowing in self-pity, when he feels the little itch of visiting crawl up the back of his neck. He wipes his eyes, not that it does much more than smear the tears around, and half turns until he sees Haytham standing uncomfortably a few feet away. Great. The absolute worst visitor Arno could hope for right now, save Shay. Shay, a man Arno had once counted as a friend. Shay, the man who had killed Arno's father. Arno finds himself half wishing for Adewale, who would be perfectly happy to ignore Arno for the length of his visit.

But then suddenly the horrifying thought occurs to Arno that Shay had served under Haytham even during his first life. If the templars work at all like the assassins, Shay had most likely been acting on Haytham's orders when he…when…

Arno sits up, glaring at Haytham through eyes that are swollen with tears.

"You look a mess, Arno," Haytham says. "Are you alright?"

"Did you order him to do it?" Arno demands.

"Order who to do what?"

"Did you order Shay to kill my father?"

Haytham's long look seems to take in Arno's tear streaked face and rumpled clothes, even the room that he hasn't left since yesterday when Shay came to him and announced what he'd done. "Ah," he says at last.

"Just tell me," Arno says. "Tell me!"

"Not in so many words," Haytham says. "I ordered him to pursue the box your father had in his possession, with the understanding that he would do whatever necessary to retrieve it."

Arno hesitates, anger interrupted for the moment by confusion. Does that count or not?

"Your father knew that he was in danger as long as he held that box," Haytham says. "He was an assassin, and fully aware that put his life in danger from templars."

"But it wasn't just any templar that killed him," Arno says. "It was Shay. How would you feel if someone murdered your father, and years later it turned out it was someone you were close to?"

Haytham gives him a terse little smile in response. "It's funny you should ask that," he says. "You know my father is an assassin, of course."

Arno nods.

"The man who killed him was a templar. He infiltrated the house, he won my father's trust, he even courted my sister. And when his loyalties were discovered, he sent mercenaries to kill my father and kidnap my sister. Days after father's funeral, he was appointed as my guardian. I had no idea what he'd done, of course, I didn't know anything about assassins or templars. He raised me, trained me, brought me into the order, and then eventually I learned his role in my father's death." His smile grows bitter. "Believe it or not, I understand exactly what you're going through. Losing an assassin father at a young age, only to be raised by templars? To later discover that your father's killer is someone you're close to? Yes, Arno, I understand."

"I want to be angry," Arno says. "But I'm just…it hurts. He pretended to be my friend."

"I understand if you don't believe me," Haytham says. "But I assure you, there was no pretense. Shay had no idea who your father was until recently."

"Of course you'd say that," Arno mumbles. "Of course _you'd_ defend him, you practically told him to do it."

Haytham sighs. "Mourn your father, Arno," he says. "There's certainly no shame in that. Be angry with Shay if you must, I can understand that feeling even if I don't agree. But for heaven's sake don't hold onto that anger. We're visitors, and you will have to live with Shay's presence for the rest of your life."

Arno mumbles angrily.

"And," Haytham goes on, "I'll add that if you feel inclined to take any kind of revenge for your father, if you hurt Shay at all, you will be hurting all of us. I won't allow that to happen." Arno doesn't say anything, and Haytham eventually presses, "Alright, Arno?"

"Alright," he mutters. "I wasn't _planning_ to hurt him or anything anyway." Not when he has Aveline, and their daughters.

"Good," Haytham says. Arno curls into himself, and Haytham sighs. He steps closer, and rests an awkward hand on Arno's shoulder. "Just take care that you do not let your anger hurt _you_ , either."

He vanishes before Arno can think of a reply, which is almost a relief. Arno flops sideways, back onto his bed. He closes his eyes, squeezing them shut until a thin trickle of tears leaks out.


	112. Chapter 112

It is a strange but not impossible coincidence that Altair’s wife and Aveline’s first husband had died on the same date. Surely, the visitors have lost enough friends between them that it would be almost stranger if _none_ of their deaths overlapped, and…

If he is honest, Altair appreciates Aveline’s company on the hardest day of the year. He has nothing to remember Maria by, not even a grave—sometimes, he remembers fleeing Masyaf after her death, and wonders if anyone had bothered to mark the place where she lies, and he burns with shame when he realizes the answer is likely _no._

“I did love him,” Aveline tells him, the first year they return to the future. “Sometimes, when I'm with Shay, Gerald seems like a dream. But I loved him.”

Altair had never had a clear picture of his mother. She'd died in childbirth, and Altair had never wasted more than a moment of his time wondering what she looked or acted like. Sometimes he wonders if Darim would have rather had a mother like that—one he had never know well enough to mourn. He cannot bring himself to ask Elena.

“I cannot remember her voice,” he tells the wall next to Aveline on the second year after they return. “I still see her face when I close my eyes, but I've forgotten her voice.”

He wonders if she would have blamed him. Altair certainly blames himself. She shouldn't have died when she did. She should have outlived him--he'd still have this second life to get through without her, but at least he wouldn't have that cursed memory, the pain of watching her die.

“Sometimes I still wonder what would have happened if he'd lived,” Aveline says on the third year. “And there were times when I was almost glad he died, because otherwise I might never have married Shay…”

Maria would have known what to do with the second lifetime Altair has been given. She'd always been good at adapting to new situations. How many other templars would have been accepted in Masyaf the way she was? And wherever they traveled, she just…fit right in. She would have loved this new time, and if she was there, Altair would have loved it too.

But as grateful as he is for the chance to live with his visitors, he doesn't really _love_ this time, doesn't quite fit in. Sometimes, when everyone else is busy and Altair finds himself with nothing much to do, he thinks of the way Maria would have dragged him out into the world, would have forced him to experience things just for the sake of the experience.

He would have hated it, but he would have loved her for trying.

"I miss her," Altair tells Aveline, on the fourth year.

Altair will never get used to the fact that she's not there anymore. He will never get used to waking alone. He will never get used to not being able to talk to her. And it doesn't matter how many years pass, how many lives he goes through. Maria's death will never stop hurting. Never, never, _never_ …

On the fifth year they sit in silence, their shared grief a familiar ritual by now. It is almost comforting, to not be alone in his mourning for one day out of the year. It eases the pain in Altair's chest just a bit, and he breathes more easily.

And then the next day he goes on with his life, except he doesn't really, because Maria isn't there.


	113. Chapter 113

Lydia drops into the seat beside Evie and smiles at her, breathless from her journey. Evie smiles back at her. “I take it your mission was a success, then?” she asks.

“Yes,” Lydia says. “Today, there is one less Templar in the world.”

“Good,” Evie says. She runs a quick eye over Lydia, but the girl seems uninjured. Although she's not really a girl anymore, is she? She's nineteen, but she's also taking down targets, all by herself. It's always an unpleasant moment, Evie thinks, when the next generation grows up to supplant the one before it.

“And what about your mission?” Lydia asks, gesturing to the heap of crumpled up papers, scattered across Evie’s desk and the floor around her.

“I suppose it is turning into a sort of mission,” Evie says. She sighs, and lays her pen down next to her latest effort. “But I'm only trying to write a letter to a friend's father, and I'm finding it… difficult."

"Why?" Lydia asks, peering over Evie's shoulder to see the letter—Evie twitches the paper aside to keep it out of view. It's private, and only half finished besides. And in any case, Lydia's habit of reading private letters over people's shoulders is something she's picked up from her grandfather. Evie has never managed to break Jacob of that particular habit, but she's determined to cure Lydia of it.

"Well," Evie says. "Strictly speaking, my friend hasn't been born yet. And neither has his father."

"Oh," Lydia says. "One of your visitors, then?"

Evie half nods, eyes drifting away from Lydia, back down to the letter. "Desmond," she says.

"Oh," Lydia says, raising her eyebrows. "Granddad told me about him. You two were sleeping together, weren't you?"

They'd been in love.

"Yes," Evie says. "But things…got complicated, and I married Henry instead." She glances downstairs, where she'd left Henry talking to Jacob. It would probably be a good idea to go rescue him soon.

"So why are you writing to his father?" Lydia asks.

"Because I still care for him," Evie says. "Very deeply, and I know that his birth father made his childhood very difficult for him. I want to help him. And it's probably futile because I don't think I can change the future, but I don't feel comfortable letting this opportunity pass without even trying."

"Well, I'm sure you'll figure out a way to convince him," Lydia says, with confidence. "You're very persuasive."

"Thank you," Evie says. "And I'd rather hoped I could convince you to do me a favor, and deliver this letter."

"Me?" Lydia asks.

"It would be a real miracle if I lived long enough to be able to deliver it myself," Evie says. "But you just might. And if you don't, then your children likely will."

"But you have children of your own," Lydia points out.

"And neither of them knows about visiting," Evie says. She's never told Henry, never told her daughters, never told any of the small brood of grandchildren she's gradually beginning to accumulate. Jacob, of course, had never had a problem sharing his visitors with his family—Lydia still thinks of Arno as a grandfather. "You do."

"Well, yes," Lydia admits. "I can deliver your letter for you, if you want. And if you ever get it written."

Evie laughs and waves her away, and Lydia goes running down the stairs to find the others. When she's alone again, she turns back to her letter. It had seemed such a simple idea at the time, a way she could help someone that matters to her. But the phrasing is difficult. She doesn't know how much to say, or how to explain her interest in the first place. She's not even sure how to  _ address  _ the letter—a name alone seems too informal, but Evie isn't sure what his rank within the assassins will be when he receives the letter. Assassin, master assassin, mentor? What—

She doesn't realize Jacob is in the room until suddenly he's behind her, holding his hands over her eyes. "Jacob!" Evie protests.

"You're overthinking things," Jacob says, completely cheerful. "If you want to write this letter, just write it. You're trying to do a good thing, so whatever you say will be okay."

He's probably right. Evie nods, then reaches up to pull his hands off her eyes. "What are you doing, though?"

"Making a point?"

She scowls, but when Jacob takes Lydia's place next to her and starts up a casual patter of one sided conversation, Evie finds the letter comes out much more easily. When she is finished, she takes it down to Lydia, who solemnly promises to hold onto it as long as necessary, and ensure it reaches its intended recipient.

-//-

William Miles is too old to have a son, and he knows it. He is thirty nine years old, and thoroughly used to being alone. He had not expected to fall in love at thirty five, had never wanted to marry, had not been  _ ready  _ for the news that he will soon be a father.

But here he is, here  _ they  _ are, a tiny, fragile family of assassins in a world that is ruled by templars. What kind of a world is that to bring a family into? It would be a Herculean challenge for a man better suited to fatherhood than William is, so for him…

William knows how to lead. He knows how to ensure that a team of assassins finishes their mission and gets out alive. He knows nothing about…changing diapers, or preparing baby formula, or whatever else babies expect of their parents. His son is less than an hour old and already William feels like he's drowning under the weight of this new responsibility. The boy is staring up at him, eyes wide, and William feels uncomfortably like he's being judged, and perhaps found wanting.

Someone knocks on the door, and William calls out a terse "Come in."

It's one of the younger apprentices, a pimply boy just on the cusp of becoming a teenager (and there's a horror that hasn't even occurred to William yet—what is he supposed to do in twelve, thirteen years, when this infant turns into an ill-tempered, disobedient teenager?). "Sir," he says. "Someone's here to see you."

"Who is it?"

He shrugs. "Dunno," he says. "She's from England or something, I guess? She sounds like it, like people in movies and whatever."

"And she's here—why, exactly?"

"Dunno," the boy says again. "She just said she has to talk to you."

"Is she an assassin?" William asks.

"Of course," the boy says. "The guards wouldn't have let her in if she wasn't, would they?"

William tries to think of a reason why any assassin from overseas might have come to the Farm, but draws a blank. "I'll go see her," he says, standing. Then he stops, frowning at his son (the child blinks and then yawns). He can't go have this conversation now, not while he's holding a baby. But he's not going to wake his wife when she's just gone through an exhausting eight hours of labor.

"Better hurry," the boy says brightly. "She's  _ super _ old, I think she might just like drop down dead if you keep her waiting too long."

Well that…makes even less sense, and William is itching with curiosity. He'll have to find someone willing to watch the child soon, his duties as an assassin simply won't allow him to be home every second of the day, and his wife is no less busy. For now, however, this half grown apprentice will have to do.

"If I leave this child with you for a few minutes," he says, "will you drop him?"

"No," the boy says. "But do I have to—"

"Yes," William says, handing his son over. "I  _ will  _ be back. Don't go anywhere."

The boy rolls his eyes, but doesn't actually complain out loud.

William goes hurrying out of the house, toward the main building of the complex. That's where this mysterious visitor will be, no doubt. It's where all the Farm's official business takes place, as well as any meeting that the entire complex needs to attend. Today, however, William sees only a little old woman sitting on a bench at the edge of the room. She holds herself stiffly upright, despite her age, and the look she gives William is sharp enough that it might have belonged to a much younger woman.

"You are William Miles?" she asks, pushing herself to her feet. She uses a cane to stand, but once she's upright she doesn’t seem to need it.

"Yes," William says. "And who exactly are you?"

"Lydia Frye," she says, holding out her hand—William shakes it, and her grip is firm. "I have a letter I'm supposed to deliver to you." She pulls her hand out of his and pulls a worn envelope out of the pocket of her coat. William takes it, turning it over in his hands. It is rough and uneven, and William's name is written on one side in a flowing, old-fashioned script. The ink is faded but still readable, and William is hit by the sudden feeling that this letter is very old. Perhaps, impossibly, even older than he is.

"Well, go on," Lydia says. "Read it. I've been carrying that letter around most of my life, I'd like to see it finally get to its destination."

William peels the envelope open, and pulls out the single sheet of paper resting inside. It's written in that same flowing handwriting as his name on the envelope, the kind of cursive that people just don't use anymore. The date at the top of the letter is October 13, 1912. William half smiles, abruptly excited by this new mystery, and begins to read.

_ Sir, _

_ My name is Evie Frye. I doubt you will have heard of me, and so I hope you will forgive a brief listing of my credentials. I assure you, I do not include these to boast, but merely in the hope that you will understand that I write to you as a Brother, and one that has the best interests of the assassins at heart. I am a master assassin, and have been since the age of twenty. Since then, I have served the brotherhood for many years, first in London and later throughout India. In addition, I have had the opportunity in my life to handle a Piece of Eden. _

_ It is this last fact that leads me to write to you today. My experience with this particular Piece of Eden has affected my memories, and given me knowledge of certain things I should not, perhaps, know anything of. _

_ I know your name. And more importantly, I know your son's name. Perhaps this will come as a surprise to you. Perhaps, depending when you receive this letter, you do not even have a son yet. But I assure you that you will, and that he will be a great man. _

_ And so I write to you on his behalf, asking you to think of him. You are his father, and your actions toward him, your attitude around him, will shape his world and indeed his mind. I ask you only to think of him, to consider what is best for him. Inattention or mistreatment, whether it is a result of ill intent or neglect, will destroy him. The world—and you as well—will be robbed of everything your son has to offer. And trust me when I say that would be a real loss. _

_ Sincerely yours, _

_ Evie Frye _

He is struggling to breathe when he finishes the letter, shaking a little under the force of the sudden, fierce pride in his chest. And there is relief as well, because—well, what else can this Frye mean by  _ he will be a great man  _ but  _ he will be a great assassin _ ? And if this knowledge comes from a precursor relic, that only cements William's certainty that she is talking about his skill as an assassin. After all, the artifacts never seem to mention lesser assassins. No, they gravitate toward the truly notable assassins of history. And it is William's duty to train his son for this… great destiny, whatever it might be. This is something he  _ can  _ do. Parenting? No, no, that is not… he doesn't know anything about that. But he will train his son, he will push him as hard as he needs to be pushed so that he will be  _ ready _ . He will push him harder than any other child, because this is not any other child, this is William's son.

And he will be a great assassin.

-//-

Lydia does not leave the Farm. She is getting too old to travel and that's part of it, but mostly she's worried for Desmond. Despite carrying her great-aunt's letter for over seven decades, Lydia has never opened or read it. She can perfectly imagine the look on her great-aunt's face if she could have seen Lydia reading a letter meant for someone else. So she doesn't know exactly what the letter says, but she sees the reaction William has to it, and she worries.

Desmond is not even a day old, and already his father is talking about him as a soldier, and that's awful. It's just a terrible way to grow up, and Lydia has a sad, sinking feeling that this is exactly the attitude her great-aunt had meant to discourage with her letter. It seems she may have caused it instead, and Lydia doesn't feel right, leaving.

So she stays. Volunteers to watch Desmond when his parents are away. And she tries to make him smile, as much and as often as she can. It's not easy, especially when he starts to grow a little. Lydia has children of her own, grown now, but she remembers the way they'd looked at her when they were very small. Hopeful and trusting, expecting to find love in the world around them.

And Desmond is loved. His mother is unconditional in her love, even if her work as an assassin takes her away from him more than she would like. And Lydia suspects that his father does love him, in his own distant, confused way. But he is very bad at showing it, and when Desmond looks to him for affection, he almost always comes away hurt and confused instead.

William has spoken to Lydia many times of how eager he is for Desmond to grow up a little, to mature enough to start his training. He is excited, eager to share what he knows and make sure his son is ready for every challenge life might throw at him. But  _ Desmond  _ comes to her crying because his daddy won't pay attention to him, because he doesn't know what he's doing wrong or how to be better.

When Desmond is nearly four years old, Lydia comes back to her little house on the edge of the Farm to find Desmond sitting on her front step, hugging himself and crying. He cries more quietly than any almost-four-year-old Lydia has ever met, and she might have missed it, except that when he looks up and reaches his arms toward her, Lydia can see tear tracks on his face. He's squeezing the little stuffed lion his mother made for him when he was born, hugging it as close to his chest as he possibly can.

She eases herself down to sit beside Desmond, ignoring her aching legs and the stabbing pain in her hip, and pulls him close to her. "What happened, Desmond?" she asks.

"Daddy's mad again," Desmond whispers. "He said I'm getting too big for toys and he's gonna throw Haytham away when I have my birthday." His fingers tighten on his toy.

If Lydia had not known about Desmond's visitors—possibly better than Desmond himself knows them, at this point—she would have questioned the strange name he'd given his lion. As it is, she breathes a little easier at the reminder that William is not the only father Desmond will ever know. "I'm so sorry," she says.

Desmond makes a noise like a long, drawn out whine as he struggles not to break into tears. "Lydia," he says. "Why do I gotta be an assa…assassy…asassassass…"

"Assassin?" Lydia asks when it becomes clear he doesn't know how to stop saying  _ assassin  _ once he's started. He keeps getting stuck on all the 's's.

He nods. "Why do I gotta be that? Nobody else has to do training when they're little. They don't gotta throw away their toys and I don't  _ wanna _ !"

"Shh," Lydia whispers as he finally gives up and starts crying in earnest. She strokes his hair and whispers kind, empty words until he tires himself out and sits almost in her lap, shuddering. "Why don't you sleep here tonight?" she says. "Would you like that, Desmond?"

"Yes," he whispers. "Can you tell me our special story again?"

"Of course." Desmond smiles a little and springs to his feet—when Lydia struggles to follow, he reaches his little hand down to try and help. He's barely three feet tall and skinny as a stick, so Lydia waves him off and manages on her own. Her heart races in her chest from that tiny exertion, and she thinks with a pang that she won't be able to be here for him for much longer. If she is brutally honest, she expects she won't last long enough to see him turn four, and begin his training.

And honestly— _ four _ ? That alone is enough for Lydia to lose all respect for William Miles.

But she is here for him tonight, and that is better than nothing. "Go inside and wait," she says, giving him a little nudge toward the door. "And I'll sort things out with your father."

"Okay!" Desmond chirps. He looks enormously happier already, and Lydia wonders if it is the natural resilience of children, or if he's just used to this from his father. She walks down the short row of houses until she comes to the Miles house, then argues with William for a quarter of an hour. She wins in the end, of course she does, because William is the mentor but Lydia is ninety seven years old and the granddaughter of Jacob Frye—which is to say, she knows what she wants and is not going to take no for an answer, thank you very much.

Then she returns home, triumphant, only to find Desmond has set three places at her kitchen table. He's kneeling on one chair, and he's set his lion in front of the plate next to him, and left the third open for Lydia. He beams at her with very real pride when she walks in, and she smiles back.

"I helped!" he says. "Did I help good?"

"Yes you did," she assures him. Desmond preens, just a little, and Lydia takes her dinner out of the refrigerator for him while he prattles on to his lion, a cheerful stream of consciousness that ends with him reminding the lion it is supposed to wash up before eating.

Lydia gives him her dinner—she doesn't eat much these days, she can't seem to find an appetite, and anyway she's getting too old to do any cooking herself. One of the other assassins brings food around for her in the mornings, and if Lydia does get hungry, she'll eat.

Today she is not, and she is happy to watch Desmond eat it—he puts some on his plate, and some on his lion's plate, then eats all of his and scolds his lion for not eating  _ his _ , and announces he's going to finish that as well. Then he hugs the stuffed animal tight and promises he's not angry and that he loves him very much.

Then, once he's eaten absolutely everything, he turns to Lydia with a look of complete innocence and asks, "Aren't you gonna eat too?"

"No," she says. "I'm not hungry tonight."

"'kay," Desmond says, and hops off his chair to help clear the table.

The rest of the evening passes quickly. Desmond starts yawning not long after supper, and Lydia helps him up to her room to sleep. There's only one bed in her little house, and he seems to really like having someone to curl up against when he falls asleep. And Lydia doesn't mind. Her grandfather and great-aunt had been his visitors before they died—he's practically family.

"Time for our special story?" Desmond asks hopefully, when he's settled in bed.

"Of course," Lydia says. She turns off the light and sits down next to him—in the dark, she hears Desmond shift closer to her. "Once upon a time, there were eight very special friends. They lived very, very far away from each other, and only came for visits on special occasions. But they loved each other dearly. They took care of each other, always, and—"

"And there was lots of hugs," Desmond interrupts. "Right, Lydia?"

"Right," she agrees. "Lots and lots of hugs." And, apparently, sex. She doesn't mention this to Desmond. "And they were all very good people, they were very brave and very strong, but the youngest was the biggest hero of all."

"Was he little like me?" Desmond asks.

"He was… exactly like you, Desmond. Yes." Lydia sighs. "And one day, when the whole world was in trouble, when nobody else could do  _ anything  _ to help, he was very brave, and he saved it. But it wasn't easy, and even though the world was saved, the brave hero died."

"But it was okay," Desmond says, because Lydia has told him this story a hundred times, and he can recite it back by heart. "Right?"

"Of course it was," Lydia assures him. "Because his friends loved him so much that he couldn't stay dead. They loved him so much that they brought him back. And then they came to stay with him."

"Forever and ever and ever," Desmond says.

"Forever and ever and ever," Lydia echoes. "And they made more friends, and loved their new friends just as much as the old ones. And sometimes they went on adventures and were very brave, and sometimes they stayed home together and were very silly." Desmond, on cue, reaches out to tickle her, giggling madly. Lydia catches his hand and gives him a fond squeeze. "But they were all happy, because they were with the people they loved. And they lived happily ever after."

Desmond smiles up at her, and his face is unworried and open in childish innocence. "Lydia," he says. "Do you think I can have friends like that someday?"

"Can I tell you a secret?" Lydia whispers, leaning close.

He nods.

"I think you already do," Lydia says. "And they're just waiting for the right time to say hello."

"Whoa," Desmond breathes. "That's so cool!"

"I know," Lydia says.

"Did you hear that, Haytham?" Desmond asks his lion, leaning over to where he's tucked the toy in next to him. "I have friends! Just like in the story." Then he sighs in contentment and relaxes in the bed. "That's okay then," he says. "I think it's okay if daddy's mad at me, because he’s not gonna stop--” his voice falters, then goes on, stronger. “And I have special friends that love me lots and lots and  _ lots. _ "

And he's smiling when he closes his eyes and drifts off to sleep.


	114. Chapter 114

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter today, because... finals.

"Something wrong, Desmond?" Evie asks, in an undertone, when she catches the funny looks he keeps sending Lydia. He's younger than she's seen him in a while—Evie doubts he's even half her age.

"Do you have a visitor?" Lydia asks, glancing up from the stolen templar correspondences she's been trying to decode.

"Desmond's here," Evie says. It feels odd to talk about a visitor with someone who doesn't have any, and she wonders (not for the first time) how Jacob had gotten comfortable enough with that to share Edgar with Arno.

"Hello, Desmond," Lydia says.

He nods, still giving her the same confused, searching look he's been studying her with since he arrived.

"He says hello as well," Evie says, even though he hadn't, just to keep Lydia from feeling slighted.

She stands, gathering her work. "Well, I'll leave you two to your conversation. I think I need a break from all this." When she's gone, Evie turns back to Desmond. She feels more comfortable having an actual conversation with a visitor when the two of them are alone.

"Is something wrong?" she asks Desmond now. "You have met Lydia before now, haven't you?"

"I'm… not sure," Desmond admits.

"What do you mean?"

"I know I haven't met her on a visit," Desmond says. "Not as an adult, anyway, I've seen her as a child. But I can't shake the feeling I've met her somewhere before. A long time ago. But, um…" he shakes his head, still looking confused. "I can't quite remember."

"Maybe she reminds you of someone you knew when you were a child," Evie suggests.

"Maybe," Desmond says. He's still frowning at the door Lydia had left through. "I'm sure it's… nothing important."

But he doesn't look sure, not at all, and he can't focus on anything else for the rest of his visit.


	115. Chapter 115

Elena is in the room for a whole minute before her grandpa looks up from the baby and notices her. Which isn’t fair because that's all grandpa _ever_ cares about anymore. Stupid baby. Who invited her anyway? She's not like Geraldine, who is finally big enough to play with. All the baby does is sleep and eat and poop and steal Elena's grandpa.

"She's not even cute," Elena tells her grandpa when he actually notices she's in the room with him. She isn't even sure why she's in the room anyway, because grandpa's just going to want to talk about the baby,  _ again _ . Elena wouldn't have come at all except dad said she had to. "She's an ugly baby and she's stupid!"

"Elena!" dad says from the door, and he sounds shocked and a little bit angry. "Elena, that wasn't nice—"

Elena blows a raspberry just like Edward taught her and runs away from dad and grandpa and the baby. She runs all the way upstairs to her room—well, her and Geraldine's. There's not enough rooms here so now that they're both big girls (but Elena is the biggest, of course, because she's almost seven) they have to share. It's not so bad, mostly, except now Elena is worried they're going to make her and Geraldine share with the stupid baby, too.

Geraldine is building something with blocks on her bed when Elena comes in. Elena could have told her that the blocks are just going to fall down on the bed because it's so soft, but Geraldine is still only two so dad says it's okay that she doesn't know stuff yet.

Elena goes to her side of the room and sits on her bed. "Your sister is stupid," Elena tells Geraldine.

"Not s'posed to say stupid," Geraldine says. "Papa says it's mean."

Elena crosses her arms and frowns. She's mad at Geraldine's papa, too.  _ And  _ her mama, because they're the stupid baby's papa and mama too. "She  _ is  _ stupid," Elena insists. "They should have left her at the hospital."

"But she's our baby!" Geraldine says, and she's so upset that she kicks all her blocks over. "If we left her at the hospital, she wouldn't have a papa or a mama." She beams. " _ Or  _ a big sister."

Elena glares at her. "Why would you want to be a big sister anyway? Especially to the  _ stupid _ baby. Your mama and papa probably like her better than you now, too."

"No!" Geraldine says. "Papa said they're not allowed to pick favorites! And Grace isn't stupid, you're just  _ jealous _ !"

"Am not jealous!"

"Are too!"

"Am not!"

Geraldine throws a block at her. It misses, but it makes Elena mad anyway. She jumps off the bed and maybe she's thinking about hitting Geraldine or finding something to throw back, she doesn't have that figured out yet, but dad gets to her first.

"Elena Miles," he says, and Elena freezes in the middle of the room because that means she's in a whole lot of trouble. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing."

"She was gonna hit me!" Geraldine says, jabbing a finger at Elena. "And she said Grace was stupid!"

"She threw a block at me!" Elena protests.

"She said we shoulda left the baby—"

"She said I was jealous—"

"Hey," dad says. "Elena, I  _ know  _ you know better than this. Say you're sorry to Geraldine."

"Sorry," Elena says, and doesn't mean it at all.

Dad frowns at her like he knows she's not sorry, and pulls on her hand to drag her out of the room. "Come on," he tells her. "We need to talk."

"But  _ dad _ —"

"No buts," he says, and takes her up the stairs to the roof. Elena isn't expecting that at all, because usually she only gets to go to the roof as a special treat, and she knows she hasn't been good and dad's mad at her. But they climb up the creaky stairs and sit down in the middle of the roof together, keeping carefully away from the edge.

Elena keeps waiting for dad to say something, but he doesn't. His face says a lot, though, and Elena doesn't want to keep looking at him so she looks past him, over the edge of the roof and out at the city beyond it. Not a big city, like the one they stayed at before this one. Just a little baby city.

It's quiet up here. It wears on her anger, and no matter how stubbornly Elena tries to cling to it, the quiet won't let her hold on.

"Feel better?" dad asks, when the anger is mostly gone.

"A little," Elena says.

"That's good." He holds out his good arm, making room for Elena to lean up against him, and she does. "We need to talk about how you've been acting, Elena. Do you know why I'm upset?"

"Probably 'cuz I called the baby stupid," Elena says, looking down. "But it wasn't my fault, dad! I don't  _ like  _ the baby."

"You can't say people are stupid just because you don't like them," dad says. "It hurts people when you do that. It hurt Geraldine, because Grace is her little sister and she loves her very much. And it hurt your grandpa, because Grace is his daughter."

Elena grumbles into dad's side, but it's not really words.

"And you hurt me," dad says. "Because I know you're a very good person, and you love your family a lot. But when you act like you've been acting lately, that's not showing you love them. Do you understand?"

"Yea," Elena says. "Yea, but dad, grandpa isn't showing he loves me, either! He doesn't wanna talk to me anymore, or play with me…" She reaches up and wipes her eyes because they're getting wet and she doesn't want to cry. "He just wants to play with the stupid baby! And he's going to do all our special things with the baby instead of me! Like when you have to go away on missions, and grandpa makes me special breakfasts. Or—or when he took me to see the princess movie  _ three times _ and it was just me and him. But now he isn't gonna do that stuff with me cuz he likes the baby better!"

"Oh, honey, no…" Elena turns into him, into his hug, and she cries and cries because all she wants is her grandpa back, she wants him to love her like he used to love her before the baby came and ruined everything. She hugs dad and feels better when he hugs her back. The baby is dad's little sister too, even though he's too old to have a baby sister, but at least Elena knows she's still  _ his  _ favorite. She just wants to be grandpa's favorite, too.

"He doesn't like Grace better," dad says, when Elena has sort of accidentally sort of on purpose ended up on his lap. "He just likes her different, because he's her dad."

"And dad love is better than grandpa love?"

" _ Different _ ," dad says again. "Not better. Right now, Grace just needs him more because she's so small. You're a big girl, Elena, but Grace is just a baby."

"I made lunch all by myself today," Elena tells him. She did. She made a sandwich with cheese and bologna and extra mustard, even though she doesn't like mustard. But it's grandpa's favorite and she'd made a second one for him, and waited and waited for him to come to have lunch so they could eat their sandwiches together. But then when he finally came he just got the milk for the baby and left again and Elena threw both the sandwiches away. And Altair told her she was wasting food and that was bad.

"Good job," dad says. "Was it good?"

Elena shrugs. "I didn't eat it."

"Do you want me to make something for dinner?" dad asks. "I think we still have some of the macaroni shaped like dinosaurs left."

Normally, Elena  _ loves  _ the macaroni shaped like dinosaurs. Today she can only manage to sort of like them. "I guess."

So she goes downstairs with dad and he makes her dinner and they eat it together, but dad finishes first and disappears for a while. Elena sits at the table, pushing dinosaur macaroni around on her plate and slouching down in her chair.

She's still not done eating when grandpa comes in and sits down in his usual chair, close to her. He doesn't have the baby, and something in Elena jumps when she sees that, but she says. "I'm mad at you, grandpa," and looks at her macaroni.

"I heard," grandpa says. "Your dad told me."

Elena doesn't answer.

"Hey, Elena." Grandpa leans over and puts his hand on her shoulder and Elena jerks it away. He backs away again. "Can you look at me for a second?"

"I'm eating my dinosaurs."

"Please?"

She makes a big show out of it, putting down her fork and crossing her arms and turning around to look at him.

Grandpa looks at her, very serious, and for a second Elena thinks he's going to yell at her for not liking his stupid baby. "I'm very sorry," he says instead.

"Sorry?"

"I've been very excited to have Grace in my life," grandpa says. "Because I want to love her as much as your dad loves you."

"That's a lot," Elena warns him.

"I know," grandpa says. "That's why I've also been really worried that I might not be able to love her  _ enough _ . But I've been ignoring you, and that wasn't a nice thing to do. So I'm sorry."

"Me too," Elena says, and mostly means it. "But I miss you."

"I miss you too," grandpa says. "And I'm going to be better about spending time with you. I promise. Okay?"

"Okay." Elena crawls over two chairs to get to grandpa and hug him. "Grandpa?"

"Yes?"

"Dad made me dinosaur macaroni," Elena says. "But he didn't put our special ingredient in."

"Well, that's because it's secret," grandpa says, dropping his voice to a whisper.

"I know," Elena says, whispering too. "I didn't tell him."

Grandpa laughs and stands up to get the mustard, and some dinosaur macaroni for him, too. Elena points at her plate and grandpa squeezes extra mustard on for her. And she doesn't tell him that she doesn't like mustard, just like she never told him before. Because she loves grandpa more than she loves anyone else except dad. And sometimes love means hugs or kisses, sometimes it means stories before bed or playing together. But then sometimes, love means pretending to like mustard even though you don't, because it's your grandpa's favorite food.

"I love you, grandpa," Elena says when the dinosaurs are all gone.

"I love you, too," he says, kissing her forehead. "You will always be my favorite granddaughter."

"Really?"

"Really."

"What about Matthew's sister?" Elena pushes. Just to see what he'll say. "Geraldine's papa told her picking favorites isn't allowed."

He winks and leans in close again. "Don't let Matthew tell his sister," he says. "But you're  _ still _ my favorite granddaughter."

And sometimes love means picking favorites even though you're not supposed to.


	116. Chapter 116

Evie has taken to writing her own obituary over and over again in her head. It's a depressing pastime, but what else  _ can  _ she do to pass the time? She's dying, and she's known it for a while now. Cancer. In her lungs. From what her visitors tell her, it's difficult to treat even in the future, which doesn't make Evie feel any better about dying now.

She's seventy one, which is a respectable age for an assassin, even if it doesn't feel like enough time to do everything she wants to in this life. It's not that Evie has a lot of regrets in her life, but… well, there are one or two choices she's made, choices she's  _ had  _ to make, that she wishes she'd never had to face in the first place.

Henry, for example. She loves him, she really does. Her life with him has never been short of love or happiness, and their children (skilled assassins, both of them, but far away) are perhaps Evie's greatest pride. But there had been a time when she thought choosing between him and Desmond would destroy her, and there had been times when Evie wished she could have simply split herself in two and loved them both.

Well. She always has and always  _ will  _ love them both, that's exactly the problem. But she could never  _ have _ them both.

She hears footsteps, but doesn't open her eyes. It will be Jacob, come by to look in on her again. She knows he's terrified that she's about to leave him, even if he puts on a brave face in front of her. Well, that's fair. Evie is terrified of leaving him, too. They'd come into this world together, and it doesn't seem right that they'll have to leave it alone.

If there is an afterlife, and Evie is not at all sure that there is (all the dead people she knows are unhelpfully not actually dead), Evie would have liked to face it with her brother.

With that not really an option, Evie is left unwilling to look him in the eye just now. She steadies her breath as much as she can, with the cancer, and pretends to be asleep. There is silence for a moment, and then the floorboard outside Evie's door creaks as Jacob moves on again.

She opens her eyes and stares at the ceiling. She's writing her obituary in her head again, she can't help it. But no matter which way she phrases things, it doesn't seem like enough. Is this really the sum of her life? Is this  _ all _ ?

Evie had expected… more. And she doesn't know exactly what that means, but she had at least thought that at some point she would lose this half-finished feeling she's been carrying around for most of her life. But she hasn't felt completely certain about the way her life has gone since the shroud gave her memories back to her.

Fifty years is a long time to be unsure about something so important.

"Evie?"

A hand grips her shoulder, gently, and Evie opens her eyes. She hadn't heard anyone come into the room.

"Evie…"

Of course she hadn't heard him. Desmond is a visitor. She looks up at him, young and healthy (but then, almost everyone seems young to her now), and can only bring herself to face him for a moment or two. He looks maybe… five years older than he had been when they'd agreed to end things. She can't see his face without thinking of the life she could have had with him. She can't stop  _ wondering _ .

It would have been the same if she'd chosen Desmond, of course. She'd have spent her life looking at Henry and wondering what life would have been like with him. It's the not knowing that hurts, the damnable what ifs.

"I'm dying," Evie says, and the rasping wheeze of her voice grates at her own ears. She must sound so… so  _ decrepit,  _ to Desmond.

"Dying's not so bad," Desmond says softly. He reaches for her hand and she lets him take it. Even squeezes slightly. "As long as you're not alone, and I'm not planning to go anywhere."

"You don't have to see this," she says.

"I don't really have much choice," Desmond says. "I can't leave you while I'm visiting, remember?"

A fond smile curls up on her face. "I remember," she says. "I know the rules."

"And anyway," Desmond says. "I wouldn't leave even if I could. There's nowhere else I'd rather be right now."

“That's a lie,” Evie says, without any real energy.

“It's not,” Desmond insists. “But I have a reason, Evie. I need to give you something.”

“It’s a little late for presents, Desmond—“

He ignores her protest and presses something small and jagged into her hand. When Evie looks down at it, she sees a shard of something that almost looks like crystal, but shot through with gold. It tingles ominously against her palm. “It's a piece of the thing that killed me,” Desmond says.

“Well… Thank you?” Evie says. She turns it over in her hand, trying to think of something to say. “Why?”

“It brought me back,” he says. “And then it brought the others to me, too. I'm hoping… Maybe it can do the same for you.”

“Or it could go horribly wrong and strand me in some other time,” Evie says.

“It's up to you, whether you want to take the risk or not,” Desmond says. “You don't have to, if—“

Evie closes her hand tight around the shard and looks at him. He seems to understand everything she's thinking from the look in her eyes.

Because she is not going to pass this up. If there's even a chance of it working… She'll have to risk everything. And how much is everything, really? Here, now, at the point of death, she is terrifyingly aware of how little she has left.

"It took us ages to figure out how to break the thing," Desmond says, as the silence between them stretches out. "Pieces of Eden don't really break easily, and this one was especially hard."

"How'd you do it?"

"We sent Edward and Ezio to go look at it," Desmond says. "Because they're the most destructive, you know?"

Evie almost laughs but doesn't, because she knows if she laughs she'll start coughing again, and she's scared that if she starts now she won't be able to stop. "And they managed it?" she asks.

"I think your brother helped," Desmond says. "He showed up visiting Edward, or something—I don't know, they all get very weird and change the subject as soon as anyone starts asking questions. They probably blew something up or broke something they weren't supposed to. I don't really want to know."

"Jacob knew about this?"

He nods. "He's got a piece, too. I just hope it was all worth it. I hope it works."

“Well I'll find out,” Evie says. “Soon. I'm not going to last long, Desmond. I think tonight might be the night.”

He tightens his hold on her hand and Evie understands that even with this sliver of hope he's given her, he's scared. He has no more idea if this will work than she does. She wonders, briefly, how long he's been carrying this thing around with him, a tiny chance of happiness he doesn't know if he can believe in.

But he says, “You'll be okay.”

“Isn't everyone supposed to be here?" Evie asks. It's not the best change of subject, but she doesn't want to think about whether or not she'll be okay. She doesn't want to think about what's coming next at all.

Desmond nods. "Usually all the visitors are together when one of us dies," he says. "But sometimes it just didn't happen. I mean, no one came for Edward, and he'll make jokes about it but I  _ know  _ it still bothers him."

"I'm glad you're here, at least," Evie says. Softly.

"I can call Jacob too," he says.

"No," Evie says, so quickly that she starts coughing again, wheezing and rattling and she feels like she's  _ drowning _ —in a ridiculous moment of clarity, she understands at last why Altair has always been so afraid of water.

Desmond moves closer to her, and that's a help, but he calls for Jacob too, ignoring Evie when she shakes her head. "I don't want him to see," she says, when she has finally managed to get her breathing under control. "He can't see me die, Desmond, it'll kill him too."

The door bangs open then and Jacob comes in, looking annoyed. "I'm stronger than  _ that _ , Evie," he complains. His face turns sad. "You can't go without saying goodbye."

Desmond shifts aside to let Jacob sit down next to Evie, and she's grateful beyond words when he reaches over and hugs her. "Goodbye, Jacob," she says, around the sudden lump in her throat.

"Goodbye…" his voice is wet too, and Evie hates that. She hates that she's made him cry over her. "Bye, Evie."

She doesn't know how much longer it is after that. Time rushes away from her, going all the faster because each moment is suddenly so precious. Every time she takes a breath, Evie is struck by the terror that it might be her last one, and the almost worse hope that it won't be. Hope is a dangerous thing to give to a dying woman.

She clutches the shard more tightly, and she clings to the two men beside her, and she waits. To die.

It happens at last, in the dark, dark hour just after midnight. Evie takes another breath and can't manage another. There is no energy left in her, not even enough to fill her lungs one more time. She closes her eyes, and she hopes…


	117. Chapter 117

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And, as a follow up from Evie's death in the previous chapter...

He doesn't realize he's about to die until half his visitors are standing around him, looking grim and sad. Jacob doesn't know what they're so upset about—he can't stop smiling.

It's not that he wants to die, he's not suicidal or anything. But he's old, he's sick, he's stuck in bed and he hates that. And he's lonely. He has Edgar, and Lydia, and he could not possibly be more grateful for them. But he is the only visitor left on Earth, there won't be another one until Desmond is born. That won't be for another sixty four years (and Jacob is seventy five—how weird is it to think that he'll die closer to the year of Desmond's birth than the year of his own?).

He looks around at all of them, all his visitors, and thinks that there's no one he'd rather have with him now that it's finally happening. He's said his goodbyes to Edgar and Lydia already, and written both of them long, rambling letters to leave behind, lighthearted as he can manage. He hopes that when they come up to check on him and find him dead, they'll read the letters and be able to smile instead of feeling sad. Jacob's going to miss them, but… it's his time.

And he thinks, ever so briefly, of the countless templars, of the blighters, of all the other enemies he's fought over the years, the men and women that have tried so hard to kill him. His grin gets wider—sucks to be those guys, he's outlived them all.

Arno, old and bent himself, sits down at Jacob's side and takes his hand. Evie is already there, a solid presence as unyielding as a rock on his other side.

"I think your face is broken," Arno informs him.

"My face is fine," Jacob says.

"You're smiling," Arno says. "I mean, you look really, really happy, which is weird because you're—" He cuts himself off, looking guilty.

"About to die?" Jacob finishes. "I know, yea. Why do you think I'm so happy?"

"Possibly because you're insane," Arno says, without skipping a beat.

"Only a little," Jacob says, which is true. Sure, he sometimes imagines conversations with Evie in his head. And there are days when he can't remember things right, when he loses track of time or doesn't…  _ quite  _ know what's going on….

Jacob squeezes Arno's hand a little tighter. He can't wait to get to the future.

"You haven't changed your mind, have you?" he asks, just to make sure. "When we see each other again, you'll still want me?"

"If we make it to the future," Arno says. "I promise I will want you."

"Good," Jacob says. "Good. And we  _ are  _ going to get there, okay? No if about it."

"But what if we don't?" Arno asks. "What if…"

"Then I get to die happy," Jacob says, "Holding your hand, believing that I have an entire lifetime coming, and I'm going to get to spend it with you."

Arno blushes and looks down at his lap.

"I hope you're not forgetting me," Evie says, and when Jacob looks to his other side, where she's sitting, he sees tears on his sister's face.

"Of course not," Jacob says. "Evie, don't—don't  _ cry _ …"

"Shut up," she says, wiping her eyes with the hand that’s not holding his in a vice grip. "Shut up, I'm not crying."

"You're definitely crying."

"Only because I love you, you idiot."

"I love you too," Jacob says, and doesn't tease her anymore even though she's crying even louder now.

And then there are all his other visitors. The ones from the past and the ones from the future, the templars, the assassins, his  _ friends _ . And Jacob feels something warm glowing in his chest, filling him up until he feels like he's ready to burst at the seams. "I can't wait to see you all," he says.

"Speaking of which," Desmond says. "Um… Jacob, I hate to kill the mood, but do you have your Shard on you?"

"What? Oh, crap—" he gestures at the mess cluttering the other side of his room. "It's over there somewhere."

" _ Jacob _ ," Evie says, tears apparently chased away for the moment by exasperation. "Are you ever going to learn?"

"No, probably not."

They bicker, an achingly familiar pattern that makes Jacob  _ laugh _ for the first time in ages. A minute or so later Desmond comes back to hand him the Shard. Jacob squeezes it tight, tight as he can, and Evie makes a withering comment that questions his ability to function on a basic level without her. And Jacob laughs again, he's happy, he's surrounded by all his favorite people in the world and he's coming to join them—

He dies, still laughing.


	118. Chapter 118

Her next breath is easy, and Evie lingers over it, letting it fill her lungs. She has never been so grateful for a single breath before, but when she lets this one out and takes another, and another, again and again, Evie smiles.

She’s lying down somewhere, and it's vaguely uncomfortable. It feels like there are tiny rocks digging into her back. Evie can hear noise from somewhere below her, but she's too bleary right now to identify it. She sits up, bracing for pain, but her limbs move with unexpected ease.

When she opens her eyes, she sees it's because she's not in her body.

No, wait—it  _ is  _ her body. But it's just so young. Evie feels like a child again, although her body is maybe in its twenties. She feels bizarrely like she's been stretched out of shape, crammed into her younger self.

"Evie?"

She looks up from an embarrassingly detailed examination of her hand and sees Desmond crouching beside her. There's a kind of desperate hope in his face, and Evie's breath catches at how close he is.

"Desmond," she says. "I'm alive. I'm—it  _ worked _ ." She opens the hand that had been holding the crystal shard when she died, but it's just charcoal and ash, and below that a blobby burn scar where she'd clutched at it. A puff of winds blows the ash away, and Evie takes a deep breath. She can't pretend she's not happy to see it gone—she's had enough trouble from pieces of Eden.

Desmond half reaches for her then stops, hesitating—Evie's face flushes, and she's unexpectedly nervous. This is what she wanted, isn't it? Now that she's back, now that she's in the future, there is nothing to stop her from loving Desmond. It's not even Henry--she knows he would never have wanted her to be alone, now that he's gone. It's just that...

She's so  _nervous_. There are butterflies in her stomach, and she feels the way she had in the long ago days when she first realized she liked Desmond. It's been so long since they were together that Evie can't quite convince herself that this is all going to be okay.

But it's Desmond. And however nervous Evie might be, she knows she can trust him. She steps forward, and for a long moment they just hold each other. Evie takes a great, shuddering breath, filling her lungs with twenty first century air, and relaxes. Desmond, in this moment, feels like an anchor. He's here, and she's here, and whatever comes next is going to be okay. More than okay, it's going to be  _amazing_.

"I'm so glad you're here," Desmond says, voice choked with emotion.

"So am I," Evie says. She fights to keep her voice level, but she can't keep her fingers from tightening around Desmond's shoulders. She imagines he must be able to tell how desperately grateful she is to be here, with him. 

But eventually Desmond's phone starts buzzing and doesn't stop—they break apart (but not  _ too  _ far apart), leaning against one another as Desmond answers his phone. Sounds like Edward. Evie can hear him through the speaker. She sits there and marvels at the thought that it's not just Desmond she'll get to see now, it's Edward too, and all their other visitors. She leaves them to their conversation, and takes a minute to sit down on the roof nearby and examine their surroundings.

By the time Desmond has managed to calm or pacify Edward and hang up, Evie has recognized exactly where they are. "This is the roof where we first kissed," she says when he sits down next to her. "What are the odds that I'd come back  _ here _ ?" Not that she's complaining. Evie likes this place. It's full of good memories.

"I came here as soon as I visited you and saw…"

"My death?" Evie finishes for him. 

“Yea,” he says. “I thought… Well, visiting can be kind. Why not come here and hope for the best?”

She nods, and for a second considers pressing more about… About her death. But she doesn't like saying the words any more than Desmond does, and shakes her head. "Let's not talk about that anymore," she says.

"Gladly," Desmond says, and then goes on eagerly. "We can talk about anything else, you know. We can do anything, go anywhere—"

"I want to go home," Evie says.

"What's home for you here, though?" Desmond asks. "I mean… this isn't your time. Yet."

She likes that  _ yet _ . It's like a promise that this will be her time, eventually. "Home is wherever you are."

Desmond goes bright red but smiles. "Okay," he says. "We'll go home. Hey—do you want to meet Elena?" This last part is so enthusiastic that Evie has to laugh.

"I'd love to meet your daughter," she says (Desmond almost glows). "In person, I mean. Do you think she'll like me?"

"Yea," Desmond says. "God, Evie, she's going to love you."

Evie hopes that's true. She likes Elena, from what she's seen of her during visits. And more than that... she likes Desmond, and wants to be a part of his life. Because this is it. This is the end to all the wondering, the lifetime of never being  _ quite  _ sure that she's made the right choice. She'd had a lifetime of Henry's love, now, if she's lucky, she'll have a lifetime of Desmond's.

She gets up and offers him a hand. "Come on," she says. "Let's go home."

He grabs her hand and hauls himself to his feet—for a moment they are so close it takes her breath away—and then they head toward the edge of the roof. It's too high up for a leap of faith (and the future is disappointingly short on hay carts, anyway), but there's a service elevator there that will take them down to ground level.

Which is when Evie hears the (surprisingly high pitched) shriek, turns around and sees—

A hand, slowly opening to reveal a burn mark on the palm, and a pile of ash blowing away.

Evie's eyes flick from the hand to the face, and it's  _ Jacob _ . Jacob! Evie beams, because she's not sure if this day could possibly get any better.

Jacob groans and sits up—and then he grins and jumps to his feet. He runs to Evie and hugs her, and then (apparently for no reason other than he happens to be there) hugs Desmond too.

"You died too?" Evie asks. Stupid question, she's seen his death. But Jacob outlived her, and so some little part of Evie has always been able to pretend that death didn't count.

He shrugs. "Guess so," he says

She smiles at her brother. "We're going home," she says. "Do you want to come?"

"Yep." He grins. "Just  _ think  _ how much fun we can have in this century."

"Oh no," Desmond sighs.

"Oh yes!" Jacob says, and Evie laughs. She laughs until her sides ache, until her face is splitting open in a smile, until she finally, truly believes that this is real, and she's here. Jacob showing up helps—nothing in life has ever really felt like it counted without at least some involvement from Jacob. He's the one immovable presence in her life that leads to everything else she's ever done or will do.

She pauses at the edge of the room, staring out once more at modern London spread out below her. Maybe Jacob's right—this  _ will _ be fun.

Jacob bounces into the elevator, but Evie holds Desmond back. "Thank you," she says softly, and the kiss that follows is all the better for knowing that there will be another one, and another, and another—that their lives from this point on are completely in their own control. They're not at the mercy of visits anymore. Although Evie is sure this will complicate the timeline immensely, regardless—will she and Jacob still visit? She knows she's had visits from a Desmond older than this, at the very least. Will she have to be careful of spoilers? Will they—

"Come on already!" Jacob shouts. "Let's  _ go _ !"

They go.


	119. Chapter 119

"I'm not ready for this," Evie tells Desmond, when Jacob eventually lets them have a moment alone together. It's evening by now, the first evening Evie has ever spent in her own body in Desmond's time. She is… excited, sad, terrified—too many things in her head all at once, and she needs time to sort through them.

"Ready for what?" Desmond asks. They're at an outdoor café, alone for the moment because Jacob is inside losing his mind over how many coffee choices there are. Evie is not looking forward to the inevitable caffeine high, but at least it's giving her a few moments alone with Desmond.

"Us," Evie says. "Listen, Desmond—"

He interrupts her with a nod. "I know."

"You know… what?"

For a long moment, there is silence. Evie is very aware of the feeling of foreign (stolen) clothing against her skin, made of fabrics that had not existed or not been common when she died a century earlier. It's warm out, but she feels naked without the layers of protection afforded by her robes. Not that she's worn them in years, of course. She'd been ill, but—well, she's  _ young _ again. Old, dusty instincts are stirring back to life inside her, and Evie has always favored shadows over Jacob's… bolder approach.

"I know that it's been a long time since we were together, from your point of view," Desmond says. "I know that you married a man that you love very much, and that you had two daughters with him.  I know…" his eyes slide away from Evie's face and he lets out a breath. "I know we had our chance, and life took it away. I'm not sorry you were happy, Evie, not at all. And I hope we can still be frie—" He looks up and stops speaking abruptly. "What? Why are you laughing at me?"

"I'm not," Evie says. She's not,  _ really _ she's not. But she's smiling widely and her voice is bursting with fondness, and she can see where he's coming from. "But Desmond, that's not what I was going to say at all." She holds up her hand to keep him from interrupting again. "Listen, alright? Yes, I love Henry dearly. Yes, I am grateful for all the years we had together. You cannot and will not replace him."

Desmond nods, and Evie reaches across the table to hold his hand in hers. She loves that he'll let her do that. If Evie had only had the one hand, she'd never let anyone hold it, she'd never give up that freedom. It feels like the greatest possible trust, that he'll sit there and let her hold his only hand.

"The difference between the way I feel for you and the way I feel for Henry is like… they're as different from each other as they are from the way I feel for Jacob."

"So you're saying… you see me like a brother?" Desmond asks.

Evie is trying as hard as she can to tell him she loves him. Henry would have understood without her having to say the words, but they'd been married decades before he died. Desmond is still on the outside in some ways, still unsure and insecure and hoping for assurances. Evie  _ wants  _ to give him that assurance but she has never been good with saying the words, she has to build herself up to them. "No," she says. "I do not see you as a brother, Desmond. It's just that we can't pick up where we left off. I need a little bit of time, that's all I'm trying to say. But I… Desmond, I love you." There they are. The words that she's been trying so hard to get out.

He opens his mouth, and then closes it again. His face is slightly red, and although he won't meet her eyes he doesn't look nervous so much as bashful. He's smiling. So is Evie. "You know you don't have to say that," he tells her. "It's been a long time, you don't have to feel… obligated to… with me, you know?"

"That's not at all what I'm feeling," Evie says. "If you can accept that I was married to Henry, and that I loved and still love him, and that I can still love you as well, then we won't have a problem."

Desmond's grin gets a little sharper, like he's laughing. "My dad's in a threesome with two of our other visitors," he says. "If I can live with that, I think I can live with you having been married before."

Evie smiles, and tries to pretend that a small but vocal part of her brain isn't imagining a threesome with Henry and Desmond. Clearly she's been spending too much time with Jacob lately.

And speak of the devil—Jacob comes back out of the café, juggling three cups of coffee and a pack of pastries. Evie raises her eyebrows at him and points at the coffee. "I would ask which one's mine," she says. "But I'm almost positive you got all three of them for you."

"Well, yea," Jacob says. He looks honestly surprised. "Sorry, did you want one?"

"You're going to make yourself sick," Desmond says, eyeing the coffee.

"Sounds like a challenge," Jacob says, raising the first cup and making a motion like he's toasting Desmond. He's not, of course, because nobody else has anything to toast with. But he grins anyway and drinks a disturbingly large amount of coffee in one go.

"This is not going to end well," Desmond mutters, and Evie chokes out a laugh.

She thinks things are going to end  _ very  _ well. Maybe not Jacob's attempt to try every variety of coffee available in this century (Desmond has already assured her that's not physically possible, but Jacob  _ clearly  _ intends to try). That's—no, there's no way that's going to end well. But other things? Her and Desmond? Yes. It will take time, but eventually they're going to get their happy ending.

-//-

Sometime after midnight, when the three of them are in a hotel, trying to get some sleep before an early morning plane out of the country, Evie hears the sound of vomit coming from the bathroom. She's half asleep, so it's not until she sits up that she notices Jacob and Desmond are both gone. She gets up and pads to the bathroom, where she finds Jacob crouched over the toilet and Desmond perched on the counter next to the sink, a healthy distance away from Jacob.

"—both told you not to drink so much coffee all at once," Desmond is telling Jacob quietly when Evie gets close.

"Yea, sure," Jacob says. He gags again, then moans pathetically and leans forward to rest his forehead on the toilet seat. "Hasn't anyone in the future figured out how to make being sick not suck?" he asks.

"Nope."

Jacob groans again, more loudly, and Desmond shushes him.

"You'll wake Evie," he says.

"Right," Jacob says in a whisper. "You won't tell her, will you?"

"You threw up on her shoes before you made it in here," Desmond says. Evie makes a face.  _ Jacob _ . "I think she'll figure out that you were sick."

"I don't want to worry her," Jacob mutters.

Or hear  _ I told you so,  _ Evie thinks.

"Plus," Jacob goes on. "She's just going to say 'I told you so.'"

"Fine," Desmond says. "I won't tell."

The conversation pauses for a while as Jacob vomits again. When he's done, he says, "Desmond, can I… can I ask you something?"

"Yea," Desmond says. "Sure, what's up?"

"It's not really a question I guess, it's just—I've never lived outside the country, not like Evie did when she moved to India with Henry. I moved to London when I was twenty and I've only left it for any length of time  _ twice _ . Once to visit Evie in India and once because the city was being bombed. I don't really want to go somewhere else. This is my home."

"I don't know if it's going to help, or anything," Desmond says. "But… Evie will be there with you. And all the rest of the visitors. Arno will show up soon enough, and…"

He goes on in a calm, quiet, voice. Evie listens for a while, leaning against the wall and smiling, and then goes back to bed. That's it, Desmond's passed. It's not like putting up with Jacob is an official test she wants to put the people in her life through before she can let herself care about them, but she feels so much better knowing Desmond can sit up with Jacob while he simultaneously vomits from doing something stupid  _ and  _ has a minor crisis.

Desmond's a good guy. He's good with Jacob. That counts for a lot.


	120. Chapter 120

 

 

> **Sage**
> 
> Hey, Elena, did dad tell you about anything weird that's going to happen soon?
> 
> What?
> 
> Nooooo.
> 
> Why?
> 
> Just wondering. He called a few minutes ago and said he'd be coming to visit this weekend.
> 
> Nooooo, he's still in London. :(
> 
> He was supposed to come home and see me first!
> 
> Sage, what's going on?
> 
> I don't know, that's why I'm asking you.
> 
> Just let me know if you hear anything, okay?
> 
> Fine

Elena is still pouting when Grandpa calls her down for dinner. It's not fair, Dad's been gone two whole weeks and he hasn't even told Elena when he's coming home. But apparently he's going to visit _Sage_.

Bleh…

"What's that face for?" Aveline asks as Elena joins the others around the kitchen table. It's cramped in here (it's _always_ cramped, no matter what safe house they're staying in), but Elena likes it that way. Small families must feel so lonely at mealtimes.

"Sage," Elena says, pointing at her phone.

"No phones at the table," Grandpa reminds her, glancing up from where he's arguing with Grace about vegetables.

"Sorry," Elena says, shoving it back in her pocket.

"Did Sage do anything in particular to annoy you?" Aveline asks as they settle in and start passing food around. "Or is it just a general older brother problem?"

"I'm okay with him being my older brother," Elena says, because she is. Most days. Not right after everyone found out, but it's been a couple years now and Elena's had time to get used to the idea. "But Sage said Dad told him he's gonna go see him this weekend! Dad's supposed to come home before he goes to visit Sage."

"I'm sure he has a good reason," Aveline says, giving Elena a quick hug. Elena doesn't mind, not the way she does when Rosemary tries to hug her. She's _Sage's_ mom, not Elena's. But Aveline is—well, it's complicated, because she's Rory and Jeanne's mom, and Elena's visitors are like an extra part of herself, so in some ways Aveline is a sort of mom-like figure to Elena. But at the same time, she doesn't try to _act_ like a mom, more like a nice aunt or something, so she doesn't rub Elena the wrong way like Rosemary does. "He will come home, eventually. Don't worry."

"But why did he go in the first place?" Elena asks.

"Assassin business," Shay says from Aveline's other side, leaning over and giving Elena a sympathetic look. "I presume."

"No," Elena says. "Edward said it wasn't—"

"Shush, Elena," Aveline says, touching the back of Elena's arm. It's a gentle motion, but firm—Elena flushes. She's old enough now that she's sometimes allowed to know what's going on when people say _assassin business_. But Shay is not an assassin, so even though he's basically family there's still stuff Elena isn't supposed to tell him. It's hard to remember.

"Well," Shay says, smiling and doing his best to smooth over the awkward slipup. "I'm sure he had a good reason, whatever it was."

They let the subject drop and the conversation splinters into three, four separate groups. The volume rises and Elena doesn't even notice someone's come in the safe house's front door. Not until she hears unfamiliar laughter from back by the door, and then another voice, and this one makes her light up.

"Dad!" she shouts, knocking her chair over backward and sprinting for the door. He's there, with two unfamiliar people Elena really doesn't care about. Elena's hair, long enough to reach halfway down her back, bounces behind her as she runs straight into her Dad's arms. "You came back!"

"Of course I came back," Dad says, and he's laughing when he says it. "Did you think I would ever just leave you?"

"No," Elena says. "No, but _Sage_ said you were going to see _him_ first."

"Well, I am going to see him this weekend," Dad says. "Because I wanted to introduce him to someone important. But I had to introduce her to you, first." He grins. "Obviously."

"What—" This comes from one of the strangers Dad has brought back with him. Elena glances up at him, then at the woman at his side. They look kind of the same, like maybe they're related. Elena thinks the woman is pretty, but the man has the same weird smile Edward has when he's about to get himself in trouble. He's the one that's just interrupted. "You're not going to introduce _both_ of us? I'm important too!"

Dad rolls his eyes. "Yes, Jacob," he says. "You can be important too."

"Jacob is a girl's name," Elena says, just out of habit. One of Dad's visitors is called Jacob, and when Elena was little she thought all Jacobs were girls, and maybe she can't _see_ Dad's visitor, but she can still annoy him.

"Aren't you _ever_ going to let that go?" this Jacob asks, which is funny because there should only be one Jacob in the whole world that knows about the Jacob-is-a-girl joke. "What if I said Elena was a boy's name?"

"That would be wrong," Elena says, but she's sort of still thinking about who exactly this Jacob is supposed to be. "It's a _girl's_ name." She looks back up, away from the new Jacob. "Dad, what—"

"Well…" And Elena doesn't think she's ever seen him smile so much. "These are two of my visitors. They came back."

"Like everyone else?" Elena asks, gesturing vaguely at the kitchen.

"Exactly," Dad says. "So this is Jacob—" a finger, pointed at the man with the Edward-like smile. "And this is Evie." The pointed finger turns into an outstretched hand, and the woman smiles as she takes it with her own and squeezes.

"Your girlfriend Evie?" Elena asks.

"Well, it's a little more complicated than—"

Elena stops listening, and dashes away from Dad to hug Evie, too. She's never seen this woman before in her life, but Dad loves her a lot and Elena's been waiting to meet her since she was a little girl. She still remembers the way Dad used to come back from visiting, how he'd pick her up and spin her around like they were dancing, all the stories he'd tell her about Evie, Evie, Evie…

Here and now, Evie puts a careful, nervous hand (the one not holding Dad's) on Elena's back. "Hello, Elena," she says. Elena thinks she sounds nervous, and hugs tighter so she'll feel better. "It's nice to finally meet you in person."

"Yea," Elena says. "Yea, you too! Are you going to stay here?"

"Yes," Evie says. "I expect I'll be here with your father for a very long time."

Elena doesn't look back up at Dad. She already knows he must be smiling again.

"I'm staying too," Jacob interrupts, loudly.

"Don't mind her," Evie says, smiling softly at Elena. She has a nice smile, it makes her eyes look nice too. "She just likes to be the center of attention.

" _She_?" Jacob repeats. "Evie, no! I'm not a girl!"

He keeps going, but Elena is looking at Dad again. "Everyone else is at dinner," she says. "Can I go tell them Evie and Jacob are here?"

"Go for it," Dad says, and Elena breaks away from the hug to go running back into the kitchen, shouting _look who's here!_ at the top of her lungs.

 

> **Sage**
> 
> Sage, guess what!
> 
> What, Elena?
> 
> Dad has a giiiiiiirlfriend. :)
> 
> Her name’s Evie
> 
> Wait, what?
> 
> Does my mom know?
> 
> Does YOUR mom know?
> 
> Idk
> 
> But she's really nice, and pretty, and she makes dad smile a lot.
> 
> I like her.
> 
> Good, I guess?
> 
> You'll like her too! Wait and see.
> 
> Well, I got used to having a dad and an annoying little sister. Guess I can get used to this Evie.
> 
> :P
> 
> Anyway, isn't it past your bedtime?
> 
> Maaaaaybe
> 
> Go to bed, Elena.
> 
> Fiiiiiiiiineeeee
> 
> Goodnight, bossy big brother
> 
> Goodnight, annoying little sister
> 
> <3 <3 <3
> 
> <3


	121. Chapter 121

Evie hasn't shared a room with Jacob since she married Henry and left London. Back then the room had been a train, technically, but it still brings back good memories when Evie finds herself sharing a room with her brother in their first days in the twenty first century.

"I can't believe they stuck us in the storage closet," Jacob grumbles. The two of them are in what's going to be their room, moving stacks of boxes out.

"It's not a storage closet," Evie says.

"It's a storage room," Jacob says. "That's about as big as a closet."

"Well it's not like there's a lot of empty rooms around," Evie says. "So it's either this or moving in with Altair."

"I bet he'd set a curfew," Jacob grumbles, grabbing another box. "Thanks anyway, I'll stay with you. Maybe we can convince Connor to move in with Altair. Then we can take his room instead of the closet."

"Altair doesn't share," Elena announces, walking in with a bucket of cleaning supplies. Jacob makes an audible groaning noise.

"But this room is so small," he whines.

Elena puts the cleaning bucket down and puts her hands on her hips. "You have to be smart about it," she says. "Look, we move around a lot, right? So you have to do something right away to claim the room you want. Like, me and Geraldine and Grace always have to share a room, so me and Geraldine pick the room we want, and then we bring Grace up and tell everyone she pooped in it."

"How does that help?" Jacob asks.

"Because no one wants to stay in the poop room," Elena explains. "Only, Grace is almost three and I think we're going to have to think of something new once she's potty trained."

"Alright," Evie says. "I think that's quite enough of that."

"I like this kid," Jacob says, looking at Evie but pointing at Elena. "She has good ideas."

"I know how things work around here," Elena says seriously. "I know how to get extra time to play Pokemon, and how to not eat vegetables at dinner."

When Desmond comes up half an hour later to help with the cleaning, Evie catches him at the door. "Your daughter is being a bad influence on my brother," she tells him.

"What?" He looks past her toward Elena and Jacob, his face pulling into an expression of complete confusion. "Not to be rude, but—are you sure you didn't get that backwards?"

Over by the window, Elena is explaining how to get out of doing chores without being caught. She's apparently put quite a lot of thought into the process, and Jacob is listening with rapt attention.

Desmond looks at Elena, then glances back at Evie—

And they both just start laughing.


	122. Chapter 122

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted two scenes right in a row because I was going to post one last night but I fell asleep. So if you didn't see the one right before this, you should check it out. :)

Desmond has to keep reminding himself that Evie's spent a lifetime married to someone else. But it's only been a few years for him since they were together, and his feelings are fresh and raw in a way that hers, probably, are not.

"How did you live with it?" Desmond asks Haytham one morning. Evie and Jacob are upstairs with Rebecca, getting a crash course in computers, and he feels reasonably sure they'll be busy for a while. It's been a few months since the twins came to this century, so this isn't the first time someone has tried to teach them computers. But Jacob keeps getting distracted, or spilling orange juice on the keyboard, or drawing on the screen in permanent marker…

"Live with what?" Haytham prompts.

Desmond frowns and turns his attention back to Haytham. "When you were in love with Aveline and Shay, but you couldn't be with them, how did you stand it?"

"You have to remember," his dad says, after a lengthy pause. "I am very good at causing myself misery."

"But you managed it," Desmond says. "I can't stop thinking…"

"About Evie?"

"Yea," Desmond whispers. His ears are burning, and he imagines his face must be bright red. "Before, when we were…" his mouth forms the words in love, but he can't say it out loud. "Before she knew about Henry, it was so easy. I thought 'this is it,' you know? I'd fallen in love in the animus so many times, but I'd given up on falling in love myself—" he takes a deep breath. "And then I started visiting Evie and I just…loved her." Not right away, obviously. Desmond isn't sure he believes in love at first sight. But it had been so easy, so natural, to move from strangers to friends to lovers.

"Desmond—"

He presses on because he's not sure he would be able to start again if he stopped. "And then she got her memories back, and I don't resent that she married Henry. She loved him, and he lived in the same time as her, and he made her happy, right? But now she's here. And it's totally fair that she's not ready, she's like a lifetime ahead of me, but…" he half shrugs. "It's wrong, isn't it? Loving her when she's not ready? It's wrong but I just can't… stop…"

Haytham sits down beside him, and Desmond shoots him a grateful smile. He's been thinking of Haytham as dad for so long now that he barely even thinks about it. But at times like this, when he's desperate to talk, he can't help comparing Haytham's reaction to what William's would have been. The difference is almost funny.

"You love her," Haytham says. "There is nothing shameful or wrong about that."

"I miss her," Desmond says. "She's right here, she's living in the same house and on the one hand that's amazing but on the other hand we're not together and sometimes it's almost like she's farther away than ever."

"She's not," his dad says. "She's here, and you're here, and I know it's hard, but Desmond, you need to be patient."

"I know…"

"And Desmond?" Haytham halfway smiles at him. "Be bold. If neither of you ever makes the first move, you'll be missing out on something beautiful."

-//-

Desmond rarely finds himself alone with Evie, far less often than he wants. But only a few days after his conversation with Haytham, while Desmond's alone one evening and watching some truly awful TV movie, Evie comes and sits down on the couch next to him.

Desmond had been sprawled out unattractively across the length of the couch, but now he jerks upright and scrambles into a more alert position. "Hi," he says.

"Hello," she says. "Haytham mentioned you might want to talk to me."

"No," Desmond says. She raises her eyebrows. "I mean—well yea, obviously. I always want to talk to you, I'd spend all day talking to you if I could." His tongue just will not stop running away from him, and Desmond flushes. "But, um—there's nothing specific I needed to talk about." Except for the fact that he's desperately in love with her, that it's tearing him apart to be so close but not together. Not that he's just going to bring that up with Evie now, not before he knows for sure that she's ready.

"You too?" Evie asks, too quickly—then she stops and turns ever so slightly red. "I just mean… I can't believe we haven't had more chances to spend time together."

Desmond smiles hopefully at her. "We're together now."

She smiles back, just as nervous—for a second, Desmond feels like a teenager on a first date. Which is stupid, it has to be stupid, this is Evie. He knows she loves him, he just doesn't know if she's ready to be in a relationship—

Be bold.

He leans forward, just slightly, far enough to reach out and take one of her hands in his. "Evie," he says.

"Desmond."

But neither of them says anything else. They just stare at one another, and Desmond can't help searching her face, trying to see if she's as tongue tied as he is. But all he can think is how familiar this all seems, like he's stepped into one of his own memories, like he's back at the beginning when he and Evie were in love and there was nothing to complicate that…

And then she kisses him. It's fast and tense and a little bit rough, and when Evie pulls away again her eyes desperately search his face for some kind of confirmation that this is alright.

"Evie," Desmond says, without so much as a second spent thinking the words through. "I will never, ever stop loving you."

And this time the kiss is longer, and seems to last forever. Desmond lets go of Evie's hand and wraps his arm around her, holding her—and that's what makes him start crying. Silent tears run down his face and he shakes against Evie as it really hits him that she's not leaving. She's here, she's not visiting, she loves him.

"You're crying," Evie whispers.

"Sorry," he says. "I'm sorry, I just never really thought this would happen."

She laughs, but it sounds wet, and Desmond wonders if maybe she's crying as well. "Good things do happen sometimes," she says.

Desmond flushes. "And you're one of them," he says. Evie's face turns red enough to rival Desmond's, but she smiles.

The movie plays on, but neither of them so much as glances at it. There's so much to talk about, so much to take in. Desmond wonders if she's been waiting as long as he has, if they've both just been too afraid to make the first move.

Sometime after midnight they fall asleep, curled up together on the couch. And when Desmond wakes up the next morning (to the sound of Edward cat calling loudly), Evie's still there.

She's still there.


	123. Chapter 123

Jacob doesn't recognize where he is when he arrives on his visit—or he does, but not really. And he smiles at the little Evie-like voice in his head that scolds him for not making sense— _ you either recognize it or you don't, stop being so ridiculous Jacob _ . He hears Evie's voice in his head a lot these days, and he knows he must be going mad, losing touch with reality, but what does that matter? He's old, he's very old, and that's what the elderly do. Besides, Evie has been dead nearly a year and a half now, and Jacob misses her like it's a physical ache. Visits aren't enough. Jacob will happily go mad if it means hearing his sister's voice more often.

But back to where he is—it's a kitchen in a little house, mostly empty, and Jacob can't remember ever being here before. But at the same time, he knows this place. He remembers being here (only he has the funny feeling everything had been bigger the last time), and maybe there had been a broken window, or something?

"Jacob?" 

He shakes himself out of his thoughts and focuses on Arno, sitting at one of the flimsy wooden chairs next to the kitchen table. Jacob smiles, an unfamiliar expression since Evie's death, and slides into the other empty chair. It feels sticky under him, tacky with someone's dried up blood—Jacob's looks down and sees a bloodstain that's been mostly wiped away. Something like the feeling of déjà vu hits him strongly then, but the memory dances away before he can get ahold of it.

"You should clean up after yourself better," he says, looking back up at Arno.

His mouth quirks a little. "Maybe if you wouldn't bleed all over my kitchen, I wouldn't have to."

"What?"

"Never mind." Arno shakes his head and looks away. For a minute it's silent—at least in the room. A little gang of kids runs past the window, shouting and hollering at one another. Arno watches them until they're gone, then sighs and shakes his head. "Hard to remember being that young," he says.

"I know," Jacob says. "It was ages ago."

He and Arno look at one another, and he knows they must be thinking nearly the same thing. They're both so old, so bent over and frail. It seems almost ludicrous to believe either of them had ever been boys, or even young men.

Impossible, except that Jacob remembers it. In the fading, uncertain landscape of his mind, the memories of the time he'd spent with Arno shine with a determined radiance. He smiles, and Arno smiles back, and puts his hand on the table, palm up. Jacob puts his on top, and squeezes gently.

"I'm going to die," Arno says. "I know I am. And it's going to be soon."

"No," Jacob says. "Arno, you can't—I just lost Evie."

The Evie-like voice in his head reminds him gently that it's been eighteen months, not exactly recent. Jacob ignores her, because it still feels recent. It still feels like yesterday.

"It's okay," Arno says. "We're going to see each other again, remember?"

"If it works," Jacob says. "Arno, what if it doesn't work, what if this is it and we're just dead?"

Arno tilts his head, considering. "I don't think that will happen," he says. "It would just be too cruel."

Jacob looks at Arno, and he can't help wondering how Arno can be so… calm. Jacob knows for a fact that yes, actually, the world can be and frequently  _ is  _ that cruel. It snatches you away from the people you love when you need them the most, it hurts you over and over again, it wears you down until you can't stand it anymore. He'd give anything for the kind of faith that Arno has.

"Hey—" Arno squeezes his hand. "Hey, Jacob, it's going to be okay."

"But what if it's not? What if—"

"Jacob," Arno says. "Listen to me, okay? This is going to work. And I swear, Jacob, if I have to spend the last few minutes of my life comforting  _ you _ …"

"God," Jacob says, trying desperately to pull himself back together. "You're right, I'm sorry—" He takes a deep breath. "So… is there anything you want me to tell Edgar?" he asks. "Or Lydia?"

Some small part of Arno's self-control seems to break. "Yea," he says. "Tell them… tell them I love them, and that as long as you're there for them, I'll be there too. Not all the time, obviously, but… as much as I can."

"I'll tell them," Jacob assures him.

Arno tries to smile, but it looks more like a wince.

"Does it hurt?" Jacob asks.

Arno waves the question off. "I'm old," he says. "Everything hurts."

They talk for a little while, mostly of Edgar—it is easiest, Arno says, to think of the good things he is leaving behind. As the conversation goes on, the kitchen starts to fill up around them. Evie comes first, then Adewale—he looks young, and Jacob shoots him a sharp, dangerous look when Arno isn't looking. If he dares to so much as imply that Arno isn't real now, when he is dying…

But Adewale stays quiet. He hovers on the edges of the group as it continues to grow larger (the next to arrive is Desmond, then Aveline and Shay together, followed by Haytham). He looks… unnerved is probably the best word for it, and when Edward eventually arrives, Jacob hears him ask, quietly, what exactly is going on.

"Arno's about to die," Edward says, and although he is louder than Adewale (because he's Edward and his attempt at a whisper is more or less the same volume as anyone else's regular speaking voice), it does not seem disrespectful. "This is what happens, when a visitor dies. Usually we all get to gather and say goodbye."

Adewale goes silent.

In the next few minutes, as their last remaining visitors arrive (Connor and Ezio and, finally, Altair), the conversation between Jacob and Arno stutters and dies. The room around them fades out into silence, because what is the point of continuing to talk, pretending everything is normal, when this is the end of everything?

Jacob shifts his grip on Arno's hand, just slightly, so he can feel the other man's pulse under his fingers. It is thready and weak, and when he feels it Jacob finds himself suddenly blinking back tears. This is the second time he has had to watch Arno die, and although he knows it's not his fault this time, it's no less painful.

Arno takes a deep breath, coughs for a long time, then manages to speak. "Thank you," he says. "All of you." And he  _ says  _ 'all of you' but he's looking right at Jacob. "My life would have been so different without all of you. I would have been different, and I think worse. I think…"

But then he trails off, coughing horribly again, and when he stops there is blood on his hands from where he's coughed into them, and his breathing is uneven and ragged, too broken to speak. But he won't look away from Jacob, and something private passes between the two of them then. Jacob cannot move, he feels frozen in place, but he squeezes Arno's hand all the tighter, like he can physically keep him from dying if he just holds on. Arno reaches his other hand inside his shirt, and pulls out his Shard. Jacob watches as Arno squeezes it in a death grip.

"I love you," Jacob says, voice choked with tears.

And Arno looks at him, and through his obvious pain he manages to smile, and his eyes say  _ I know _ .

And then he is gone. The faint pulse beneath Jacob's fingers stutters and dies out, and Jacob is whisked away, all at once, to his own home (only it doesn't  _ feel  _ like home, does it? Not now that Evie's been gone so long, not now that he has this terrible knowledge inside him that Arno is dead…)

He cries, he curls into himself and sobs with loss. When Edgar comes hurrying in (Jacob is too old and infirm to live alone now, no matter how much he might protest), Jacob doesn't even let him ask what's wrong before saying, "Arno's dead."

Edgar is frozen with the shock of it for a moment, and then his face crumples and he lets out a little shuddering sob. "No," he says. "No, I didn't—I didn't even get to say goodbye."

Jacob stumbles a little, and Edgar reaches to steady him, and then suddenly they are wrapped together in a tight hug, neither one of them caring how it might look to anyone else. It helps Jacob, a little, not to be alone in his grief.

"He wanted me to tell you he loves…loved you," Jacob says when he can speak.

"Well I knew  _ that _ ," Edgar says. "I've known that as long as I've known who Arno is."

"And he says he'll always be here for you," Jacob says. "Until…well, I guess until I die too—"

Edgar makes a soft little noise of protest. "Shut up," he mumbles. "I can't—don't talk about that right now."

Jacob nods, and holds his son until everything feels…not exactly  _ alright _ , but not quite so painful.


	124. Chapter 124

Evie is the first of the new visitors to come back to life. Jacob is the second (because of course Evie had to beat him into their second life the way she'd beat him into their first—she'd probably managed it by exactly four minutes,  _ again _ ). But after the two of them, no one else comes back for a long time. They settle into their new lives. Evie, slowly but surely, lets herself fall back in love with Desmond. She's careful about it, the way she always is in relationships, but Jacob's first real smile in the twenty first century comes when he finds them asleep together on the couch, Evie curled against Desmond, both of them apparently at peace.

For his part, Jacob throws himself into finding all the fun things to do in this century. His personal favorite so far is bungee jumping, but he really wants to try skydiving. That sounds  _ amazing _ .

But it's all just… stuff. It's there to keep him busy until Arno comes back. He'd said—he'd  _ promised  _ they could try to work things out when they both made it to the future. Jacob's waited twenty years already, he sucks at waiting, he doesn't want to be patient anymore.

Months go by, and no Arno. Jacob stops being surprised by normal twenty first century things. Cars. Computers. The novelty wears off. Jacob goes from feeling vaguely homesick to mostly comfortable to more or less happy in this time. More, because he’s young again, he’s back to being an active assassin, he’s living with his sister and their friends, and this century has an apparently endless list of new things to do. But less, because… well, because no Arno.

“What if it didn’t work for him?” Jacob asks Desmond one day. “What if Arno’s not coming back?”

“He’ll come back,” Desmond says. “Be patient.””

“No,” Jacob insists. “I’m serious! What if he got a defective shard, or something?”

“It worked for you and Evie,” Desmond says.

“But... what am I going to do if it  _ doesn’t _ ?” Jacob asks. “I can’t even visit him anymore. What if he’s just gone for good?”

Desmond shakes his head. “Don’t think like that,” he says. “Just don’t, okay? We’re all here, and that’s pretty much a miracle.  _ Visiting  _ is a miracle. I mean, do you ever think about what our lives would have been like without it? How many of us would have lived our lives alone, or died too young, or suffered in ways we never did in this world?”

“Seems like most of us have suffered enough as it is,” Jacob says.

“But together,” Desmond insists. “Look, I grew up alone. And no matter how bad things get now, they’ll never be as bad as they were when I was by myself. And… look, trust me. With everything that’s happened already because of visiting, I don’t have any doubt at all that Arno will be here soon.”

Jacob bites his lip, then says, “But what if we run out of miracles?”

They're interrupted by the sound of running footsteps on the stairs, and then Elena pokes her head into the room. "Dad!" she calls. "Dad, another one of your visitors just showed up."

"Speak of the devil," Desmond mutters. Then, louder, “Which one?” 

Jacob is already running, he's halfway down the stairs.

" _ I  _ don't know," Elena says, voice fading away behind him. "I don't know any of them until they get here."

Jacob almost falls down the stairs trying to go faster, but eventually he gets to the ground floor. Everyone else is gathered in the kitchen, there's a whole crowd of people huddled together. They're too close, Jacob can't see—

And then the crowd parts, and it's Arno, it's  _ Arno!  _ Jacob's legs freeze under him and he chokes on his excitement. This is it, this is finally it.

"Arno," Jacob says. He tries to say it loud enough for Arno to hear over the general murmur of conversation, but he can barely manage more than a wheeze. Doesn't matter, because somehow Arno hears him. He looks up and he grins, shy and nervous, and in that moment everything in Jacob is falling in love with Arno all over again.

"Jacob," Arno calls. And then he says something else but it's in French, and Jacob curses himself because the only words he ever bothered learning in French are poop and penis. He'd thought it was hilarious at the time, because there's always been visiting to translate for him. But now…

Arno rolls his eyes and breaks away from the crowd—he's walking toward Jacob and there's determination stamped across every inch of his face. Arno speeds up, he's almost running, and Jacob finally gets his legs under control. He's running too, he's running at Arno and then they almost crash together, they're clinging onto one another like they're afraid to let go (Jacob knows he is, anyway, he's  _ terrified  _ that Arno will just disappear on him). Arno leans against him, burying his head in Jacob's shoulder. He's saying something but it's  _ French _ , and Jacob looks pleadingly up at the others. Altair looks impassive, of course he does, and Connor's wearing almost the same expression. But most of the others are smiling—Evie mouths  _ good for you  _ at him.

But Jacob is looking for Aveline. "I don't know how to French," he says.

Aveline's smile is soft and kind. "He says he's missed you."

Arno adds something else, going on for quite a while. Jacob doesn't catch a single word except for his name, and the fond, familiar way Arno says it sends a thrill up Jacob's spine. He looks back at Aveline.

"He says…" she hesitates, then steps closer so that only Jacob can hear her. Well, Jacob and Arno. But Arno already knows what he said, and anyway he apparently hasn't spent any more time mastering English than Jacob has spent working on his French. "He says he's been waiting for this, so he can be with you," Aveline says. "He says… you're the one he missed most, growing old alone."

Jacob grins. Arno squeezes his hand.

"But he also says he's nervous," Aveline goes on, more carefully. "Because he knows you're going to put everything you have into loving him. And if it doesn't work—"

"If it doesn't work…" Jacob takes a breath. He's not a child anymore. He's as grown up as he's ever going to get, and he knows that sometimes, when you love someone, it hurts. "If it doesn't work then we'll still be friends," he says. "Tell him that. And tell him—tell him I really,  _ really  _ hope it does work. And then—can you tell me how to say 'I love you'?"

Aveline finishes relaying his words, then pats him on the shoulder. "In my experience," she says. "Showing works better than telling."

So Jacob looks over at Arno. He doesn't need words to know Arno in that moment, and Jacob leans into him. And then he's kissing Arno, and Arno is kissing him back, and it's like they're back in the street outside the burning Alhambra, clinging onto each other with a wild desperation. But this time, when Arno pulls away, it's not because he's thinking about Elise, it's because he needs a second to breathe.

"Come on," Jacob says. He's vaguely aware of the others around them, and he wants privacy. Arno follows him at once, they race up the stairs and into Jacob's room. Arno throws an anxious look at the bed, but Jacob's not going to force Arno into anything he's not ready for. He takes Arno's hands in his and just holds them, leaning back a little to study him.

"Jacob?" Arno says. A smile tugs at his mouth, and Jacob assumes his next question is something along the lines of  _ are you okay _ ?

"I'm okay," Jacob says. "I'm great. And I'm going to learn French—you're going to laugh at me so much, I'll probably suck but I'll learn it for you. But you have to learn English too, alright? We'll meet somewhere in the middle, it'll be horribly confusing but I just can't wait to talk to you again. And I'll show you all the cool stuff in this century, there's so many fun ways to put your life in terrible danger, it's great, and I missed having someone to do something stupid with—"

" _ Jacob _ ," Arno says, and then—presumably to shut Jacob up—he kisses him again.

Jacob has never been so happy to be quiet.


	125. Chapter 125

Adewale has given serious consideration to the idea of accepting the shard Desmond keeps offering him. He knows it's offered with the best of intentions. Supposedly, hanging onto this thing is his best chance of coming back to life in the future. Adewale can accept this, as he certainly doesn't have any other ideas of ways to come back to life after dying.

But the thing is… he's not sure he wants to. Adewale has lived a full life. He has a son and a grandson, he is proud of the work he has done as an assassin. He has traveled, sailed the world, seen all kinds of marvels. He has done more than he ever would have  _ imagined _ as a child. Perhaps this would be a good time to call it a day.

Besides, what exactly is waiting for him in the future? Edward, the most annoying friend he's ever had? (But then, isn't he also the most loyal?) And there's Shay and Haytham. Templars, and not  _ only  _ templars, but two men that had very nearly killed him not all that many years ago. (But they have apologized to him—they seem to genuinely regret their actions.)

And then there's the confusing fact that Adewale has seen himself in the future already. He's had conversations with that future Adewale, had accused him of being a hallucination, back when he didn't believe in visiting. Now that he knows it's real, does that mean Adewale is obligated to accept the shard? More than that, does he have a guarantee that it will work? Desmond keeps emphasizing that they have no idea if this will do what they want it to, but…

But what if he just doesn't  _ want  _ this? Maybe it is just time to go. Time to lie down and rest. No more pain, no more fighting. Adewale is old and blind, he is falling apart and just so  _ tired _ . He doesn't know what he will do if he gets his second lifetime. Fade into the background, perhaps, like poor Connor—stuck in a time that is not his own, without a clear purpose or any definite direction.

Adewale lets out a little grunt of pain as a visit begins. He has been ill, and prefers to stay in bed as often as possible these days. Visiting—moving abruptly from the safety of his own bed to some unknown place and time—is jarring. His faltering vision makes it even worse, and these days there is always a tight moment of fear. Adewale knows he could appear anywhere. In the middle of a fight, on top of a building,  _ anywhere.  _ And Adewale is no longer physically capable of keeping himself safe.

"Ade!"

He'd recognize the voice anywhere, and sure enough there is Edward at his side, suddenly, propping him up.

"Edward," Adewale says. "Where—"

"It's okay," Edward says. "I have you."

"But where are we?" Adewale insists.

"Ah," Edward says. "Well… in a treehouse, actually."

"A treehouse?"

"Connor's been a bit grumpy lately," Edward explains.

"I  _ haven't _ ," says Connor's voice from somewhere behind them.

"So I thought we'd try building something," Edward goes on. "Like on his homestead. And the girls  _ really  _ wanted a treehouse, so we're making a treehouse. Only it doesn't have walls yet, so be careful where you step or you'll fall."

"Thank you," Adewale says. "Can I speak with you, Edward?"

"What? Yea, sure. D'you want Connor to leave?"

"No," Adewale says. "Connor, I wouldn't mind your opinion as well."

"Alright," Connor says. "What do you want to know?"

"I'm going to die soon," Adewale says. Edward's grip on his arm tightens. "And I have been considering whether or not it would be a good idea to come back using a shard. Desmond keeps offering me one, but—"

"You haven't taken one yet?" Edward demands.

"No," Adewale says.

"Connor, stay here with him," Edward barks. And maybe it's Adewale's imagination, but he thinks he hears a tiny note of panic in his voice. Then Edward is gone, and Adewale sways for a moment before Connor replaces him.

"He's gone to get the shard, hasn't he?" Adewale asks.

"I think so," Connor agrees. "Yes."

"He does know it won't work unless Desmond gives it to me, doesn't he?"

"I'm sure he'll figure it out eventually," Connor says. He sounds sure of no such thing.

Adewale sighs. "Do you think I should take it?" he asks, quietly.

"Yes," Connor says.

"Is this century really worth it, though?"

"Yes," Connor says again.

"But really?" Adewale insists. "Connor, you—forgive me, but you have the least connection to anything going on here, as far as I can tell. Can you still tell me honestly that it is a good idea to take the shard?"

"Yes," Connor says. "We're all here. Your visitors are here."

"Ade!" Edward calls from somewhere below them. "I brought the shard! And Desmond!"

"Oh look," Adewale says to Connor. "He  _ did  _ remember he can't give me the shard himself."

Connor half laughs.

Then Edward is climbing up, Desmond behind him, and when Adewale feels the shard being pressed into his hand, he closes his fingers around it without complaint.


	126. Chapter 126

It's too early to be out of bed, in Jacob's opinion. Particularly as there's nothing going on today, no missions or recon or  _ anything _ . So he's perfectly happy to stay in bed all morning, texting an increasingly irate Evie in the room next door. She keeps responding to him with things like  _ you're ten feet away, if you want to talk to me come in here  _ and  _ stop behaving like you’re twelve. _

But that would require getting out of bed, so Jacob just keeps sending emoticons at her. There's about a hundred on his phone, and Jacob is trying to figure out which one annoys Evie the most. So far it's a toss up between the dancing girls wearing cat ears and the weird purple demon head, but he hasn't reached the smiling poop yet.

He looks up from his phone when Arno comes in, and grins. Then Arno shuts the door behind him and Jacob's smile gets bigger. "Are we going to have sex now?" he asks, in French. It's one of the three things he's managed to say in French since Arno came back, the other two being  _ I love you  _ and  _ there is a monkey on my head _ . That one's Geraldine's fault—she'd lied and told him it was something she'd heard her parents say to each other that she wasn't supposed to repeat, which Jacob had taken to mean it was something dirty.

Arno had laughed himself breathless when Jacob repeated it to him.

Luckily, Arno is doing a lot better with English than Jacob is doing with French. It probably helps that he's surrounded by people speaking English, living in a country where most people speak English. Also that he's smarter than Jacob, and less easily distracted, and—

"No," Arno says. He still has a heavy accent, but Jacob is enormously proud of the fact that he never has trouble understanding Arno like some of the others do. Besides, he's sort of in love with that accent, the same way he's in love with everything else about Arno. Besides, it's  _ charming _ , and Jacob is shockingly ready to be charmed.

"Then why are you closing the door?" Jacob asks.

"Because there's a visitor downstairs," Arno says.

" _ Oh _ ." Jacob rolls his eyes. It's dumb, but every time someone comes for a visit now, he and Arno and Evie have to hide. Something about how it would break the timeline since none of them had known for sure they would come back after dying. "So what do you want to do while we're waiting?"

He raises his eyebrows and tries to suggest, nonverbally, that sex doesn't necessarily have to be off the table just because there's a visitor downstairs. Arno shakes his head, but there's a faint smile tugging at the corners of his mouth and Jacob doesn't push. So maybe Arno doesn't want sex as often as Jacob does. That's fine. He knows he's always going to be Arno's second love, Arno is never going to be quite as committed to this relationship as Jacob is.

But he  _ is  _ committed, and that's what matters.

Arno tumbles onto the bed next to Jacob, and Jacob leans sideways onto Arno's shoulder. It's still unbelievable sometimes. The warm feeling of Arno's skin against his, the quiet, steady rhythm of his breathing, the distinctive smell of him that even changing centuries hasn't gotten rid of. "I love you," Jacob says. He says it in French, and then in English, and then in the Italian he's learned from Ezio, and then the Japanese he'd looked up on line, and then the Hungarian he'd learned from that old guy down the street.  _ Je t'aime, I love you, ti amo, ai shite iru, szeretlek — _ he's thinking of adding Latin next, or maybe Russian, or Bulgarian, or anything else Arno isn't expecting. The only thing better than getting to say I love you to Arno over and over again is the way Arno smiles when he says it, the private, satisfied feeling of having this little thing that only the two of them understand.

"That last one's new," Arno says.

"I'm told I'm saying it completely wrong," Jacob admits.

"I don't think I would expect anything else," Arno says.

From downstairs, Jacob can hear Evie arguing with Ezio about something or other. So she's the one that's visiting—the current Evie is still in the room next door,. Jacob remembers he's supposed to be sending her annoying emoticons, and texts her a pair of eyeballs.

Seriously, what are these even supposed to be used for? Jacob can't think of a reason he would  _ ever  _ want to send anyone emoticon eyeballs if he wasn't deliberately trying to provoke them.

"Stop," Arno says, poking Jacob's arm. "Eventually, you are actually going to annoy Evie into coming over here and killing you."

"You can protect me," Jacob says, curling in close to Arno.

Arno snorts. "You can protect yourself."

"But I have this big strong man that's in love with me…"

"Jacob," Arno says fondly, and he doesn't protest when Jacob leans closer, pressing himself up against his chest and tilting his head up hopefully for a kiss. He's close, he's so close to Arno, and Jacob doesn't think he'll ever get tired of just being  _ near  _ him. Arno wraps his arms around Jacob's torso and leans down toward him.

They don't have sex while they sit there together in bed, waiting for Evie's visit to end. They kiss for a while, and then settle down to watch something stupid on Netflix together. It's some cheesy sitcom Arno's obsessed with, but it drives Jacob absolutely up the wall. It's not even  _ funny _ , but Arno likes it (he watches it with French subtitles—sometimes Jacob wonders if they're funnier than the actual English dialogue, or if Arno just has a really bad sense of humor) so Jacob's learned to cope.

He distracts himself by rubbing his bare feet up against Arno's. It's weird, he knows it is, but he just can't stop  _ touching. _

Arno mutters something in French, annoyed and resigned, but that's okay. Neither of them is perfect. Jacob does weird things with his feet, and Arno has really bad taste in television. None of that matters, compared to the fact that they're finally, finally together.

"I love you," Arno tells him, out of the blue, halfway through their third straight episode. "And  _ je t'aime  _ and  _ ti amo  _ and whatever else it is you say."

And Jacob is happy.


	127. Chapter 127

Grace has been fidgety all evening, doing everything in her power to distract Haytham in the hope that he'll forget she's supposed to be doing her homework. And he loves her, but learning subtraction is in her own best interest and Haytham refuses to be distracted. He'll help her if she wants it, but she's not getting out of this.

"Daddy," Grace says, staring at question four like it's personally offended her.

"Yes?"

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Is it about subtraction?"

She chews on her lip. "No."

"Then I think it can wait until you're done with the homework."

"But it's  _ important _ ."

He hesitates, but she looks genuinely worried. "What's your question?"

"Are you and papa bad guys?"

The question hits Haytham like a blow. "Who told you that?" he asks.

"No one," Grace says.

"We're not bad guys," Haytham assures her, but Grace still looks worried.

"So is maman the bad guy?"

"No," Haytham says, firmly. "Nobody here is a bad guy, Grace."

"But…" she looks at him like she just can't understand. "If nobody is a bad guy, why don't you all work together? Why do you have to keep secrets from each other? Why—"

"We disagree about things," Haytham says. "Very important things, about the way the world should work. But that doesn't mean any of us are bad guys."

"Why do you disagree?"

"Templars," Haytham says, "like your papa and I, think that there are a lot of people in the world that are very bad at making decisions, and so they hurt themselves and other people. And so we think that people that are good at making decisions should be put in charge, to keep other people safe. But assassins, like your mother, think that people should be able to make their own choices, no matter what."

Grace looks at him blankly. "What?"

"Well…" Haytham sighs. "Do you remember when you and Geraldine were watching TV, and you found the scary movie with the monsters?"

Grace nods. "I didn't like it," she says in a small voice.

"But you didn't know it was going to be scary until it was too late," Haytham says. "Because you'd never seen anything like that before. It wasn't your fault—you just didn't know."

"Okay," Grace says. "But… what does that have to do with why you and papa and maman are fighting?"

"Well—" Haytham hesitates, choosing his words carefully. "Pretend your papa and maman and I had been there that night. Your papa and I would want to keep you from watching scary movies in the first place, just in case you were scared. So we would pick your movie for you."

"And what would maman want?"

"She would say that you should be able to choose for yourself what you want to watch, because you're the only one that knows what you like or don't like. And no one else can decide that for you." He sighs. "But in the real world, we're not fighting over movies. We're fighting over much bigger, more complicated things."

"Then how do you know you're not the bad guy?" Grace says. "If it's really complicated, how do you know you're doing the right thing? How do you know maman's not the bad guy? What if—"

"Listen," Haytham says. "Bad guys want to hurt people, and nobody here wants that. In the end we all want peace, we all want people to be safe. It's just that your papa and I think that the people that know better have to protect the people that don't. But your mother believes that protecting people means letting them choose for themselves."

"It sounds hard," Grace says. "Do I have to pick a side when I'm bigger, like Elena did?"

"If you want to," Haytham says. But if she doesn't want to ever get involved in this war, if she wants to do something safe and boring with her life, Haytham will have absolutely no objections.

"I'll think about it," Grace announces, her little face serious. She slides off her chair and is halfway to the door when Haytham calls her back.

"Grace."

She hesitates. Turns around. "Yea, daddy?"

He points at her abandoned homework. "Subtraction."

"Aw!" Her serious expression dissolves into one of utter disappointment as she throws up her hands in dramatic surrender.

"Nice try," Haytham says. "But you still have to finish."

"I thought you forgot," she grumbles, clambering back onto her chair.

"I didn't."

Grace sighs, staring glumly at her paper. "Will you help me, daddy?"

He kisses the top of her head and shifts closer. "Always."


	128. Chapter 128

Desmond is helping Elena look for a missing homework assignment when Jacob corners him and says, "We need to talk."

"Not now," Desmond says. "I'm looking for a history report."

"It's about ancient Egypt," Elena adds. "And I actually had to do research because I don't  _ know  _ anyone from ancient Egypt." She frowns at Desmond. "Dad!"

"I  _ know,  _ Elena." He's really doing his best not to sound irritated, but honestly he's had enough trouble with this essay as it is. First Elena had spent  _ weeks  _ complaining about how she didn't want to do Egypt, instead of just starting the project. Then, two days before it was due, she'd realized that  _ oh crap she actually has to do it _ , and begged Desmond to help. And she's his daughter, so of course he'd helped her find her sources, and checked her grammar, and given her a pep talk when she wanted to stop and just give up—

But frankly he's absolutely  _ done  _ with this report, and they'd printed it out this morning and all had been well, right up until Elena came running over to him to announce that she'd lost it, and also that Grace was playing with the printer and completely jammed it.

"This is more important," Jacob insists. "Elena's just going to switch schools the next time we have to move, who cares what she gets on this report thingy?"

"Don't listen to him," Desmond tells Elena. "School's important." Then he frowns at Jacob. "And don't  _ teach  _ her that, for God's sake."

"Geez," Jacob complains. "You're in a bad mood today."

"Probably because I've been up with Elena for two nights straight trying to get this thing written," Desmond says. "And now it's gone."

"Dad, I'm going to fail history!" Elena whines.

"Well why didn't you put it straight into your backpack like I told you to?" Desmond asks.

"I did!"

"Then that's where it should be."

"But it's  _ not! _ "

Desmond turns away so Elena won't see his frustrated expression. He tries so, so hard not to get mad at her, the way his dad had so often been mad at him. But today is a bad day and it's taking all his concentration not to snap at her.

Haytham is heading downstairs when Desmond turns, shepherding Grace in front of him. For a second, Desmond doesn't think anything of it, then Haytham says, "Elena, Grace has something she wants to say to you."

"What?" Elena looks from Haytham to Grace, then frowns when Grace holds up a messy heap of papers.

"Sorry, 'Lena," she says. "I wanted to color."

Elena takes the papers, then she spins around to look at Desmond. "Dad! Grace colored all over my homework!"

"Sorry!" Grace protests, half hiding behind Haytham.

"I worked hard on that!"

Desmond had also worked hard on that, but at this point he's just glad they know where the damn thing is. He glances at the time on his phone and curses quietly. "Look," he says. "Elena, your bus is going to be here in like two minutes so we don't have time to fix it right now—" She opens her mouth to protest but he shakes his head. "I'm sorry, but we don't. So you're going to go to school, and turn this in, and tell your teacher—"

"What?" Elena asks. "That my  _ aunt _ drew all over my report?"

"…said sorry," Grace whispers.

"Of course not," Desmond says. "Just tell her that you'll have a new copy printed out tomorrow."

"But she broke the printer too," Elena says.

"I'll get it fixed," Desmond promises. Outside, he hears the unmistakable squealing sound of a schoolbus braking. "Just go, or you're going to be late. If you miss the bus and someone has to drive you to school, I am  _ really  _ going to lose my temper."

She scowls but goes running for the door, history report clutched in one hand. Desmond watches through the window to make sure she actually makes it to the bus, then breathes a sigh of relief and turns around.

Jacob's two feet away from him, down on one knee.

"Shit," Desmond curses, taking a step back in surprise. He always forgets that Jacob is technically capable of moving quietly when he wants to.

"Bad word!" Grace calls.

Haytham shakes his head and starts leading her back upstairs. "Come on," he says. "We need to talk about respecting other people's things."

"Am I in trouble?"

Haytham sighs, which Grace seems to take as a yes. "No time out, daddy," she whimpers. "Don't  _ want  _ a time out…"

They disappear upstairs.

Jacob still doesn't move.

"Um…" Desmond stares at him. "Sorry, Jacob, but are you—what are you doing?"

"Proposing," he says, like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

There doesn't seem to be any good response to this. Desmond is so surprised that it drives his previous irritation straight out of his head, replaced by a kind of numb confusion. "Does Arno know?" he asks at last.

"I'm not proposing from  _ me _ ," Jacob says. "I'm proposing from Evie."

"Is there a reason she's not proposing herself?" Desmond asks.

"Because she's very bad at proposing," Jacob says. "And so are you, apparently, but you guys are ridiculously in love and you  _ should  _ get married, so I figured I'd do the proposing on Evie's behalf."

"I assume you didn't talk to Evie about this before coming here," Desmond says.

"Well, no," Jacob says. "She'd have told me not to do it."

"Told you not to do what?" Evie asks, walking into the room.

Jacob curses and scrambles to his feet, trying and failing to look casual.

"He's asking me to marry you," Desmond says.

Evie frowns. " _ Jacob _ ."

"You want to marry him, don't you?" Jacob asks. "And he wants to marry you, so what's the problem?"

"You don't just do that," Evie says. "If Desmond and I decide we want to—if that ever comes up, it will be between me and him. Not me and him and you."

"I just want you to be happy," Jacob says.

"I'm a lot happier when you're not embarrassing me," Evie says, and Jacob gives her a deeply disappointed look before leaving. Desmond takes a deep breath, and Evie smiles awkwardly at him.

"Sorry," she says. "He's just… he doesn't understand."

"No," Desmond says quickly. "He wasn't bothering me, I was just distracted with Elena, and this… this report she was supposed to have for school today, and he caught me by surprise. That's all."

"Well I'll talk to him anyway," Evie says. "I really don't want him doing that."

But she doesn’t go straight after Jacob, she just stands there for a moment, and Desmond can feel his heart suddenly speed up. He knows that Jacob hadn't been—couldn't have been—serious in his secondhand proposal. But the thing is, now that he's asked, Desmond can't stop thinking about what it would be like. Marrying Evie.

"Hey," he says. "Evie."

"Yes?"

"I know Jacob's—he's Jacob, you know?"

"Yes I do," Evie agrees.

"But he's not totally wrong," Desmond says. "Just so you know. Because I would… if we  _ were  _ married…" He's trying to sound casual, but then he looks at her, really looks, and his stomach flips inside out. "I'd be so happy," he whispers.

"Would you?" Evie asks.

"Of course," Desmond says. "Evie, I  _ love  _ you."

She blushes. Desmond has very rarely seen her blush like she does now. "I love you too," she says, and then there's this awkward half second of silence, where Desmond struggles to find the courage to  _ ask _ , and Evie's face turns progressively redder.

And then Jacob comes dashing down the stairs.

"Jacob!" Evie says. "Were you listening—"

"Desmond!" Jacob says, speaking much more loudly than his sister. "Will you marry Evie?"

"In a second," Desmond says, before he can stop himself. "If she'll have me."

Evie turns, and looks at him, and she's silent for what feels like an actual eternity.

But then she says, "Yes," and the way she smiles at him makes Desmond wish he'd asked ages ago.  He wants to spend the rest of his life making Evie this happy. She laughs, a little self consciously, and says, "I wasn't expecting to be proposed to today."

Desmond thinks of his morning, spent bickering with Elena, and shakes his head. "Neither was I."

"You're  _ welcome _ ," Jacob calls pointedly.

"But I'm glad," Evie says. "I'm  _ glad _ ."

-//-

When Elena gets home from school that afternoon, Desmond smiles at her. He's been smiling all day, he hasn't been able to stop. "How was school?"

"My teacher wasn't mad about my paper," Elena admits. "She said accidents happen, and she let me print it again in the computer lab."

"Good," Desmond says.

"Are you still mad at me for losing it?" Elena asks.

"No," Desmond says, which makes Elena sag in visible relief and then smile at him. "And I have something important to tell you, okay?"

"Sure," she says. "What's up?"

"Evie and I are going to get married," Desmond says. "And—"

Elena squeals with all the high pitched enthusiasm an eleven year old can muster and hugs him so hard he almost falls over.

"So you're okay with it?" Desmond laughs.

"I like Evie," Elena says. "I like her a lot."

"Yea," Desmond says. He feels like he's glowing. "So do I."


	129. Chapter 129

Shay has no idea why Abstergo feels the need to keep absolutely everything they ever find. Pieces of Eden, alright, yes, Shay can at least understand why they tend to hold onto those, even if he doesn't agree. But Abstergo has whole warehouses full of all kinds of… stuff.

Most of it's junk. Prototypes of technologies that are obsolete now. Unique items, no matter how useless. Items connected to the people they're researching in the animi. It's this last bit that Shay is particularly concerned with at the moment. He's recently sent one of the new templar recruits to raid an Abstergo facility, and the recruit had come back with a ten page document listing every item stored in a particular warehouse.

He'd handed it over to Shay with obvious relief, and Shay has spent every evening for the past week poring over the columns of tiny print, trying to figure out if there's anything important or if they should just burn this warehouse to the ground. Sometimes that's easier, and it's extremely satisfying to watch the panicky emails between Abstergo employees in the aftermath. Almost as satisfying as knowing that Abstergo  _ still  _ hasn't figured out that both the templars and the assassins have access to their internal emails, thanks to a disgruntled employee Shay himself had won to the templars about a year ago. He and Haytham, after much discussion, had decided to share access with the assassins. They all have cause to want Abstergo gone, after all, and there's just too much for one group to manage alone.

But back to the list. Tonight, just as Shay is starting to think longingly of putting his work aside and going to sleep, he comes across an entry that makes him sit up and take notice.

_ One (1) pocket watch, broken, mid-1700s construction. Recovered from the grave of Arno Dorian, 01/17/2014, Paris, France. _

They have Arno's father's watch. Shay doesn't waste a moment considering that Arno might have been buried with any other watch. Of course it would have been his father's. Of course.

Which leaves Shay with the uncomfortable question of what to do with that information. Should he tell Arno? He'll want to know, and then he'll want it  _ back _ . But Shay had learned of the watch while working on templar business. And if Arno goes after this watch, and there's anything else in that warehouse worth having, he might take it to the assassins, giving them an advantage…

No. No, he'll have to tell Arno. Of course he will. Shay owes Arno a debt he can never repay, and even if he's been forgiven, Shay knows the damage will never be undone. Never mind that Arno's father would have been centuries dead by now even if Shay hadn't killed him. The point is that he  _ had,  _ and Arno had suffered for it.

He marks the entry about Arno's father's watch with a highlighter and goes looking for Arno himself. He finds him with Jacob, of course, and hesitates. Maybe it wouldn't be right to deliver this news in front of Jacob. Maybe it's too personal. But just as he's thinking about walking back out of the room, Arno looks up at him and says, "Hello, Shay."

"Arno," Shay says.

"Did you need something?"

"As a matter of fact, I did." He fights to keep his voice level as he hands the packet of papers to Arno. "This is an inventory of one of Abstergo's warehouses."

Arno looks down at the paper, his eyes drawn naturally to the line Shay had highlighted. Jacob leans over to see it as well, but it's still Arno that speaks up first. He glances from the page to Shay's face, his own expression one of shock. "They stole my father's watch," he says. "They  _ dug me up  _ and stole my father's watch."

"Why'd they dig you up?" Jacob asks—Arno shrugs, and Shay makes a mental note of that for later. The assassins apparently don't yet know that Abstergo is actively trying to exhume the bodies of every person they study using animus technology, in an attempt to get direct genetic data past when the subject in question reproduced.

"Where is this?" Arno demands, looking at Shay. He's so upset that his hand starts to shake, and he slips carelessly back into French. "Where  _ is  _ this, I need to get it back. That's my father's watch, it's not theirs to take."

"You're going to try and get it back?" Shay asks, in his clumsy French.

"I'm going to _succeed_ in getting it back," Arno corrects sharply. "They can't have that."

"But it might not be feasible to get in and find it," Shay says. "These warehouses are full of all kinds of junk—" Arno narrows his eyes. "Not that this your father's watch is junk, obviously, but there's going to be a lot of junk  _ around  _ it. And I mean finding one little watch might not be—"

"You can't just bring me this information and not expect me to do something about it!" Arno says, voice rising.

"What's going on?" Jacob asks. He shifts closer to Arno, almost putting himself between his boyfriend and Shay. "What are you telling him?"

Arno looks sideways at Jacob, and puts a hand on his shoulder. "It's okay, Jacob," he says quietly, switching back to English. "I'm fine."

"What'd he say?"

"He said you should hurry up and learn French like you promised you would," Arno says, and Jacob scoffs at him, relaxing a fraction.

"It's hard."

"It's not that bad. I have some books you can borrow, if you w—"

Jacob stands up quickly, holding his hands out like a wall in front of him. "And I think this is my cue to leave," he says. "Before I accidentally agree to learn something."

"Heaven forbid," Arno quips, as Jacob beats a hasty retreat. When he's gone, Arno turns back to Shay, and gives him a level stare. "Please," he says, and something about him, in that moment—Shay is forcibly reminded of the little boy he had been on the day his father died. It's silly, really,  _ silly _ , because Arno is not that little boy any more. He hasn't been for a long time.

But he had been once, he'd been the child Shay walked past on the way to kill his father. "Alright," Shay says, quietly. "I can tell you where it is—I have to go get the address, I don't have it memorized."

He's already halfway out of the room when Arno's voice—shaking, just a little—stops him in his tracks.

"Will you come with me?"

Shay turns, clearing his throat uncomfortably. "I don't think…it wouldn't be right, with our…with…you know."

"That's exactly why you have to come," Arno says. "I want you to. When I get my father's watch back, I don't want to look at it and think of the day you killed him, I want to think about how you helped me get it back."

"But of all the people in this safe house you could ask," Shay says. "Why me? Why not Jacob, why not  _ anyone  _ else?"

"Come with me," Arno says again.

-//-

The warehouse in question is in northern Spain; Arno and Shay spend a full day looking for it, creeping around to avoid the bored guards patrolling the building. And when Arno finally finds it, when his fingers close around the smooth, familiar metal of his father's last gift to him, he feels like himself again for the first time in ages. It's a little part of a life that barely feels real anymore. He'd carried this watch with him his entire life, and when he slips it into the pocket of his coat and feels the familiar weight there, it's such a relief.

Someone puts a hand on his shoulder, and for half a second, with the weight of the watch in his pocket, Arno thinks—stupidly, illogically—that it might be his father. But he turns around and it's Shay.

"Are you ready to go?"

"Ready," Arno agrees. "Thank you. For telling me about this. For coming with me."

Shay squeezes, just for a second, and leads him out.


	130. Chapter 130

Arno isn't sure, before he dies, whether he is really in love with Jacob. Maybe he is. Maybe he isn't. All Arno knows is he's lived a long, lonely life, and sometimes he almost can't  _ breathe  _ with the emptiness of it all. He just has to do something, anything, to ensure that if he does get a second life, he won't spend it alone again. Jacob will never let him be alone, Arno is certain of that, Jacob will never stop loving him. But Arno is  _ less  _ certain whether he will be able to love Jacob in return.

At least—he's uncertain until he dies. Until he comes back, and he's young again. And he's surrounded by visitors and then he looks up, and there's Jacob standing on the other side of the room. Looking at him like he's the only important thing in the world.

Something in Arno just seems to break. It's like a dam giving way, and there's something new and unexpected pouring into him like a deluge of water. Because the look on Jacob's face is absolutely adoring, he's so deeply in love that Arno knows he will never, ever stop.

Arno is running before he can stop himself, he's running and so of course Jacob is running too, and then they just—just crash together and Arno is clinging tightly to Jacob because he just can't believe that this is a person that loves him, and won't  _ leave _ . Arno has spent so much of his life without friends, without family—he'd been a very young man when Elise was killed, and since her there's been… no one. Just visitors, popping in and then away again, and it's not their fault but they're always leaving, leaving, leaving…

And now there's Jacob. Who loves him, who won't leave.

Arno presses himself against Jacob, burying himself in the feeling of someone around him, solid and secure as a set of thick stone walls. "Don't go," Arno whispers. "I love you, Jacob, okay? And I didn't know it before but I know it now and just don't go,  _ don't go _ ."

-//-

By evening, Arno's initial shock of finding himself in the future has settled into a kind of numb confusion. He's been welcomed back by everyone, and introduced to the non-visitors he's never really been able to interact with before. He's had a long conversation with Aveline (the only one he is able to talk to, at this point—Shay's French is… limited at best, although Arno doesn't have a right to complain). And now he's tired, he just wants to sleep for about twelve hours straight. But he knows from visits that it's very rare for these safe houses to be big enough for everyone to have their own room, so he has no idea where he's supposed to stay.

Well… he has an  _ idea _ . But he's not sure…

His feet take him to Jacob's room without quite meaning to, but he stands in the doorway for a long time without knowing if he should come in or not. Jacob is in there, with Evie—she's sitting on the bed, laughing at him as he moves through the room like a whirlwind.  _ Cleaning _ . And Arno has no idea what he's doing, because he's not sure he's ever seen Jacob clean like this before. So he just stands where he is, letting the meaningless jumble of English spill over him. He keeps hearing his name, practically every time Jacob opens his mouth, and Arno looks down at his feet, flushed but grinning…

"Arno!"

He looks up and sees that Jacob has finally noticed him. "Jacob," Arno says. He's trying so hard not to smile but he just can't help it. It's only been a few hours but something in him is already aching to hold and be held by Jacob again. He spends a few seconds fighting the urge to just reach out and hug Jacob, then realizes that Jacob will be absolutely delighted. He steps forward, into an embrace just as warm and welcoming as the first one had been.

Evie says something to Jacob, smiles at Arno, and hurries out of the room.

Jacob's is talking again. Arno has no idea what he's saying, but after a while (through some very enthusiastic gesturing) Jacob manages to get the message across that he's cleaning up  _ for Arno _ , he's making space in his room and in his life  _ for Arno _ —

And that's when Arno kisses him. He's just… he's been waiting decades for this, for someone to be there for him and to love him. And—God, has he really been this stupid for this long? Jacob's been  _ trying  _ to love him for nearly as long as they've known one another, but Arno had never let him.

And why not? Why  _ not  _ let himself fall in love with stupid, reckless, ridiculous Jacob Frye, who already loves him, who has been his closest friend since even before he was an assassin? Arno is ready. He is so, so ready to love and be loved.

This kiss isn't like the one Arno remembers from all those years ago, right after Elise died. Jacob keeps pulling away for a second or two, then coming back—Arno doesn't understand why at first, but then he realizes Jacob is smiling so widely he can't even kiss properly, and every time he pulls back he's trying to rearrange his face. And so that makes Arno smile too, and when Jacob notices he digs his fingers into Arno's back where he's wrapped his arms around him. Every squeeze sends something electric up Arno's spine, and he's just—

He's so, so happy.

They sleep together that night. Not  _ together  _ together, but in the same bed. Arno's not sure exactly how that happens, just that one second they're standing in the doorway, holding each other and kissing and smiling like a couple of idiots, and then suddenly Arno is yawning (he tries not to, he really doesn't want to be rude, but he's exhausted). And then they're both sort of casting awkward looks toward the bed, trying to figure out if they're okay with it, and then—

Somehow they're in bed. It doesn't feel anything like the mattresses Arno is used to. It's bigger, it's softer, and it doesn't itch at all. And there's Jacob, inches away, so close Arno can feel his breath on the back of his neck.

There's Jacob, not protesting at all when Arno shifts even closer, pressing himself right up against him.

There's Jacob, wrapping his arms around Arno's chest like he's not quite sure he's allowed—then giving a little sigh of relief and tightening his grip when Arno doesn't protest.

There's Jacob. Still there, the morning after, when Arno wakes up and, for the first time in decades, is not alone.


	131. Chapter 131

Jacob is in the kitchen with Desmond when the other man goes stiff and pushes him abruptly out of the room. "Hey!" Jacob protests. "What are you—"

But then he catches a glimpse of himself through the still open kitchen door, and rolls his eyes. It's very inconvenient, having to hide from himself all the time. Jacob wanders despondently upstairs, looking for Evie or Arno or someone else interesting to talk to, and finds Edward talking to Haytham. He waves vaguely.

"What's wrong with you?" Edward demands.

"I'm visiting," Jacob says.

"No you're not," Edward says. "You can't visit anymore."

Which is true. Jacob hasn't done any visiting since he died, which sort of makes sense because now he's here in the future with all his visitors. But it makes life less interesting, so that's disappointing.

"No," Haytham says, shaking his head at Edward. "He means there's another Jacob downstairs visiting someone else. Yes?"

"Yea," Jacob says. But his mind is working, thinking over Edward's moment of confusion. "But maybe I could  _ pretend  _ to visit."

"Pretend?" Edward echoes.

"Why?" Haytham asks.

"Because then I don't have to hide," Jacob says. "And, I can talk to myself."

"No," Haytham says at once.

"Come on!" Jacob says. "It'll be fun. And I won't say anything that's a spoiler, I  _ promise _ ."

"Well, I'm in," Edward says cheerfully. "You can pretend to visit me if you want."

"No," Haytham says again. "Absolutely not."

"But—"

"You're wearing a T-shirt with his face on it," Haytham says, gesturing to Edward.

"Well, yea," Jacob says. "I mean, if the templars—"

"Abstergo," Haytham corrects, loudly.

"Whatever, Abstergo. If  _ Abstergo's  _ going to make all these games about us and sell all that shitty merchandise, I want to at least get a laugh out of it."

"I think it's funny too," Edward says, raising a hand.

"Of course you do," Haytham says. "That's not the point. The  _ point  _ is that not even you, Jacob, are foolish enough to look at yourself dressed the way you are now and think you've just come from the nineteenth century."

"I could say I was bathing when the visit started," Jacob says. "So I showed up naked and Edward loaned me some clothes."

"I do have that shirt," Edward volunteers.

"Of course you do," Haytham says.

"I have two of them."

"But what if the you that's visiting is older than you look now?" Haytham asks Jacob. "He wouldn't have the memory of borrowing the shirt, and you would know you were lying."

Jacob waves a dismissive hand. "Do you know how many times I met myself on visits and didn't remember seeing it the first time around? I don't keep track that carefully."

"I still don't like it," Haytham says. "It seems a little too risky."

"Ooh!" Jacob says. "I know. I'll just take my clothes off."

"And put on…?"

"Nothing," Jacob says. "There's no way past me will be able to tell what century I'm living in while I'm naked."

"Perfect!" Edward says.

Haytham presses a hand to his face. "Fine," he says. "Fine, Jacob. Apparently it is not actually possible to talk you out of doing something stupid when you set your mind to it."

"Nope," Jacob agrees.

"Then I'm going to leave the room and avoid the entire thing," Haytham says. "But just—if you do insist on doing this, at least be careful. Don't let Edward say anything, he's terrible at keeping secrets."

"It's true," Edward says.

"And don't get too far away from him," Haytham says. "Remember visiting doesn't let you get more than a few yards away from the person you're visiting."

"I remember the rules," Jacob says.

"Fine, then," Haytham says. "I'll go tell the others you're about to do something stupid before one of them wanders downstairs and says something that gives you away."

"Thanks," Jacob says. He pulls the T-shirt over his head and starts to strip off his jeans. Haytham shakes his head one more time and leaves the room.

Edward chatters excitedly as they head downstairs, and his feigned surprise when he walks in on Desmond and the other Jacob is surprisingly convincing. Of course, this might have something to do with the fact that while he and Jacob were upstairs arguing with Haytham,  _ another  _ Jacob has shown up to visit Altair. "Well  _ this  _ is interesting," Jacob says, grinning.

The other two Jacobs (both older than him—well, they're technically younger but they  _ look  _ older) are chattering away in a corner, mostly ignoring Desmond and Altair. Desmond looks over at Edward and Jacob and rolls his eyes, but Altair treats Jacob to a more careful scrutiny. He seems mostly interested in the mostly healed gash on Jacob's bicep, which he himself had given Jacob in a sparring match a couple of weeks ago. He's figured it out, Jacob can see it on his face—he gives Altair a face splitting grin and Altair mutters something in Arabic. Jacob doesn't know what it is, but he assumes from the tone that it's something like  _ you are an idiot _ .

Well, it wouldn't be the first time he's been accused of that.

He heads over to the other two Jacobs to catch up—the older-Jacob takes in his complete lack of clothes and gives him a grin and a suggestive wink. This one's obviously far enough past Roth to be comfortable hitting on himself, while younger-Jacob looks torn between interest and a confused kind of guilt.

Jacob starts to give the older one a grin in return, remembers that he probably doesn't look old enough to have figured out he likes men, and tries to look uncomfortable. He has a feeling he just looks constipated instead.

They fall into conversation very easily. Jacob has the vague feeling he's been here before—which he has, obviously—but his memory is vague enough to keep the talk interesting.

Behind him, he can hear Edward whispering to Altair and Desmond. Probably explaining what's going on. Haytham  _ does  _ have a point about Edward not being able to keep secrets.

Ezio comes into the kitchen then, followed by… another Jacob. This one looks about thirty, the oldest out of all the Jacobs there at the moment. He's the only one of them wearing a hat, so Jacob mentally designates him hat-Jacob. Altair gives both hat-Jacob and Ezio a flatly unamused look. Ezio, on the other hand, looks like he's about to burst out laughing. "I was just upstairs," he says, looking at Jacob. "Listening to an  _ extremely  _ amusing story from Haytham—"

"Haytham?" older-Jacob echoes. "Amusing?"

"I said the  _ story _ was amusing," Ezio assures him. "Not Haytham."

"Well, that's alright then." He waves a hand at Ezio to continue.

"So I was listening to Haytham and his  _ extremely  _ amusing story," Ezio says. "When this guy shows up for a visit." He beams at hat-Jacob. "And of course I had to take him down here."

"Of course," Altair says, without an iota of emotion in his voice.

Hat-Jacob comes over to join the other three while Altair continues to give Ezio a look like death. Jacob hears him hiss, "Why did you bring yours down here? Now they're forming a pack."

"A building," hat-Jacob calls, loud enough for Altair to hear.

"What?" Altair asks, turning to look at him.

"The term for a group of rooks is building," hat-Jacob says. The others grin, Jacob included, and younger-Jacob laughs aloud. It's nice to be in a group of people with the exact same sense of humor.

Altair makes a point of turning his back on the four Jacobs.

Older-Jacob looks hat-Jacob up and down. "We age well," he says.

"Sure do," hat-Jacob says. "Shall we?"

"Wait," younger-Jacob says. "What—" he makes a startled noise as older-Jacob and hat-Jacob start making out, and turns to Jacob. "They're just—" Jacob concentrates as hard as he can at not laughing at the look on his younger self's face. "They're not into each other, they're just… you know us. Looking for attention, I guess."

"Hmm," Jacob says. He wants to tell younger-Jacob that it's not about being into himself. He's not like Ezio, who is apparently genuinely attracted to himself. It's just that kissing is fun, and kissing yourself is the kind of opportunity you don't want to miss if you have the chance because you already know all the things you like. Instead, he says, "It's pretty weird, right?"

"Really weird," younger-Jacob says, looking relieved. "Really,  _ really  _ weird."

" _ Mmmmmm,"  _ older-Jacob says, except it's more like a moan, and he's very clearly paying more attention to hat-Jacob than anyone else.

Younger-Jacob is starting to turn faintly pink. He glances at Jacob, then away again, clearly not up to the task of looking at himself naked while two more of them make out two feet away.

" _ Ewwwwwwww!"  _ someone says from the doorway, and all four Jacobs, along with the non-Jacob visitors in the room, turn to look at the new arrivals. It's Aveline, holding the hand of a Jacob that looks no older than seven or eight. Kid-Jacob, Jacob decides. Kid-Jacob looks up at Aveline, one hand over his mouth to hide his giggles. "They're  _ kissing _ ," he tells her, and the words are muffled through his fingers but not so much that Jacob can't tell kid-Jacob is wildly amused by this.

"So what?" hat-Jacob says, breaking away from older-Jacob.

"Kissing is  _ gross _ ," kid-Jacob says. He tugs on Aveline's hand until she leans down toward him, and then he whispers in her ear, loudly enough for the rest of the room to hear him, "Evie wants to kiss Paul that lives down the road."

"Really?" Aveline says, raising her eyebrows indulgently.

"She  _ told _ me," kid-Jacob says. "So she's gross too!" He laughs again. "But she's a girl so she's gross anyway."

"She's not," Desmond mutters. Kid-Jacob looks up at him.

"Why do you only have one arm?" he asks, letting go of Aveline so he can run over and poke at the place where Desmond's arm stops. "Did it hurt? Did you bleed a lot? Did you cry—"

Jacob takes pity on Desmond's growing discomfort, and goes to pick kid-Jacob up and carry him over to the rest of the group. Kid-Jacob informs him, with obvious enjoyment, that he is naked. Jacob feigns surprise, hamming it up until kid-Jacob descends into breathless laughter. He's right at the age where bums are the funniest thing in the world, so that helps.

"That's five Jacobs now," Altair says.

"You don't have to sound so disappointed," older-Jacob says.

"Yes I do," Altair says. He's looking at Edward rather than at any of the Jacobs. "I certainly hope we don't  _ all  _ get visited by a Jacob today," he says, pointedly. "That would raise some questions."

"Oh!" kid-Jacob says, looking up at all the others. "Are you guys called Jacob too?"

Younger-Jacob laughs at him and flicks his ear. "Yep," he says.

"That's cool," kid-Jacob says. "I never met anyone but me with my name before."

"You still haven't," Jacob tells him. Kid-Jacob gives him a look of deep confusion—clearly he's having trouble imagining himself grown up and being all the other Jacobs around him. Well, that's fair. Jacob remembers being firmly convinced that he was never going to be an adult.

"You're silly," kid-Jacob tells him.

Edward bursts out laughing and has to be elbowed sharply by Altair so that he'll stop.

No one is surprised when Shay comes down a moment or two later with another Jacob (drunk-Jacob, by the smell) who is wildly and loudly amused by the entire scenario. He looks roughly the same age as younger-Jacob, who nods with fond remembrance at the sight of him. "It was Ned's birthday last month," he tells Jacob. "I had a really, really good time."

"I look forward to it," Jacob says, faking a grin. He remembers that weekend. Not  _ well _ , thanks to the drink, but yea. It had been a pretty good time.

"Seven Jacobs?" Shay says, raising his eyebrows. "The group's getting pretty big."

"Building," the Jacobs say, more or less in unison.

"Not group," hat-Jacob adds.

"Seven?" Ezio says, raising his eyebrows. "There are six here."

"Connor's upstairs with another one," Shay says. "But he's asleep."

Haytham comes in then, carrying a screaming infant. Kid-Jacob makes another  _ ew  _ face and then Haytham dumps the baby (carefully) into Jacob's arms. "I blame you," he says. "Stop tempting fate."

"What did  _ you  _ do?" younger-Jacob asks. Jacob pretends not to hear him over the screaming of their younger self. By the time he's gotten the baby quiet, all the other Jacobs are distracted by drunk-Jacob making an ass of himself. Opinions seem pretty evenly split between embarrassment and amusement, depending on how far past this moment each individual Jacob happens to be. Kid-Jacob alone seems legitimately impressed, but then he hasn't figured out that he's going to be drunk-Jacob someday.

"Jacob!"

"Oh, shit," Desmond mutters, turning quickly as Elena comes running into the room. Of course she can only see Jacob, the one that's not visiting, and she's making a beeline right toward him.

"Jacob," she says again, ignoring her dad's attempts to cut her off. "You said you were going to play with me and Geraldine, remember?"

All the other Jacobs look up at him. Even baby-Jacob seems like he's looking at him.

"Um…" Jacob can't think of any excuse that would explain this. And it had been going so  _ well  _ until now—how had he lived through this seven times and not remembered what happens after this? Sure, he remembers being with a huge group of other Jacobs, but he remembers living through it half a dozen times from half a dozen points of view. It's all sort of mixed up together in his head, and he doesn't remember how he wriggled out of this. His brain goes blank—and of course he can't get Evie down to clean up his mess the way she usually does, because she'd never pretend to be visiting when she's not. Jacob starts to sweat. Maybe this actually is a bad idea, maybe he's actually managed to break the timeline.

"Is she talking to you?" hat-Jacob asks, looking at Jacob.

In the end, it's Haytham that comes to his rescue. "I don't know why I'm surprised," he says, making a big show of shaking his head. "Elena,  _ your  _ Jacob is visiting too, isn't she?"

"What?" Elena asks.

"My sister," Haytham says. "She's here right now, isn't she? That's who you were talking to?" Off to the side, unnoticed by any of the other Jacobs, Desmond nods furiously. Elena sees him and her eyebrows pinch together.

"…yes?" Elena says. "She's… right there?" She points to a space just in front of Jacob, and gives her grandfather a look like  _ what are you doing and why am I helping? _

"Ah," older-Jacob says, as the group in general relaxes again. "That explains it."

"Go upstairs and talk to Clay," Haytham says, ushering Elena gently toward the door. "Ask him to tell you the story I just told everyone else." She nods, gives the room in general one last look of confusion, and leaves.

They fall back into casual conversation, which only ends a couple hours later when the last of the visiting Jacobs has gone.

After that, Jacob spends the rest of the day being lectured first by Haytham, then by Evie, then by Arno.

Still, as he tells Edward late that night, it had definitely been worth it.

Maybe he'll do it again sometime.


	132. Chapter 132

Rory is seventeen, and he is  _ ready  _ for this. It's his first mission as an assassin—well, a novice assassin, but still. His mother has business in Paris, and to Rory's absolute delight she's decided to take him along.

The voyage from New Orleans to Paris is rather awful, of course. Rory has hated ships ever since the time he was six and threw up all over the deck of the  _ Morrigan _ . Tomas had laughed at him, and Rory never, ever forgot. But after the ship docks they are in  _ Paris _ , and Rory is genuinely excited for the first time in a while.

They're here chasing a templar that had stolen some important documents from Rory's mother. Rory doesn't know exactly what's in those papers, just that his mother says they're too important to trust them to anyone else.

But she'd let Rory come with, and Rory is honored by her trust in him.

"Where do we go first?" Rory asks when he follows his mother off the ship and onto the blissfully solid docks.

"I need to gather some information," she tells him. "And I need you to find us somewhere safe to stay."

"Maman!" he protests. He doesn't want to be sent somewhere  _ safe  _ while all the exciting stuff goes on somewhere else. "I want to help you."

"You  _ are  _ helping me," she says. Her tone is all business, her gaze sharp and alert, and Rory feels guilty for whining like a child. They're on a mission right now, they have to be assassins, not mother and son. "Rory, the French brotherhood is a mess. Their last mentor, Mirabeau, was killed by another assassin during the Revolution here. Since then they've had no strong leadership, and the assassins have become more like petty criminals than anything. I need you to find someone we can actually  _ trust _ , alright? Can you do that? And then when I've found my information, we will meet again and make plans from there."

"Alright," Rory says. "Sorry."

"It's alright." She gives his shoulder a quick squeeze and kisses his cheek. It strikes Rory for the first time that he is taller than she is now. "Go, Rory. Be careful."

He nods, pulls up his hood, and disappears into the crowd.

It takes him a while to find someplace safe. Normally he would know the signs to look for, the little markers assassins leave for one another to show safe places. But forewarned by his mother, Rory sees the traps nearby, he sees the thugs lying in wait. Maybe they know he and his mother are in the city, maybe they're just keeping the marks around just in case, just to see who wanders into them.

Well. Rory's not going to fall for that. But he's having trouble finding somewhere that  _ is  _ safe. It's growing late, and Rory is leaping along the rooftops, searching desperately for somewhere safe to stay, when someone grabs him from behind and throws him down to the rooftop. Rory cries out and starts to fight back, but then freezes.

"Arno," he says.

The older assassin freezes, surprised. "You know me?"

Of course—Rory has seen Arno in the future, where he ended up after dying, but Arno has never seen Rory. "I'm Aveline's son," he says, and Arno relaxes a fraction.

"Oh," he says. "…Rory, right?"

Rory nods. "Can I get up, maybe?"

Arno gets off him and even offers Rory a hand. "Sorry," he says. "I didn't know who you were. And you can't always trust the assassins in this city."

"So I've heard," Rory says.

"What are you—" Arno turns abruptly, his body language radiating exasperation. " _ What _ , Jacob?"

"Jacob's visiting?" Rory asks.

"Unfortunately," Arno grumbles. But then he sticks his tongue out at the thin air next to him, and Rory thinks that maybe he's not as unhappy as he's pretending. Rory fidgets a little—he's not used to this, he doesn't know what the polite thing to do is when you're with someone that has a visitor you can't actually see. Sure, his parents visit, but they aren't supposed to know Rory believes that, so…

Arno's posture shifts abruptly. A moment ago he'd been holding himself tense, carefully in control of himself apart from the brief slip when he'd stuck his tongue out at Jacob. Now he slouches, casual but still somehow dangerous, like an animal preparing itself to pounce. He grins at Rory, and Rory says, "Jacob?"

"In the flesh," Jacob says. Then he pauses, and his grin gets wider. "Alright, yes, Arno. In  _ your  _ flesh, technically, but you weren't letting me have any fun." Rory can only imagine Arno's reaction to this, but it makes Jacob laugh and bounce a little on the soles of his feet. "What are you doing in Paris, Rory?"

He explains the basics, briefly, and then finishes, "I'm supposed to be looking for somewhere to stay, but—"

"Oh, don't worry about that," Jacob says, waving a dismissive hand. "I know all Arno's safe houses."

"Yea?" Rory says.

"Come on," Jacob says. "I can show you—"

"Rory?"

Rory and Jacob both turn around abruptly at the sound of Aveline's voice. "Maman," Rory says, suddenly nervous. "How long have you been standing there?"

"Hmm? I just arrived, why?"

Because if she'd been there a minute longer she would have seen Rory talking about visits like there's absolutely nothing weird about it. And that would be bad, that would have messed up everything. It might still mess up everything, because Rory is pretty sure his mother hadn't known anything about Arno until her second round of visiting started. So they can't meet now, right? That would be bad—

Rory panics. "This is Jacob," he says, pointing at Jacob in Arno's body. "He's going to take us someplace safe."

Jacob looks mildly surprised to hear Rory introduce him like this, but also hugely entertained. Rory holds his breath while his mother considers this, looking Jacob over with that curious tilt of her head that means she's using her eagle vision. Eventually she seems to decide that Jacob is trustworthy, and gestures at Jacob to lead the way. Which he does, making sure to be as obnoxious as he possibly can be without making Rory's mother lose faith in him entirely and leave.

They reach the safe house, and Jacob continues to very obviously revel in pretending to be Arno. His imitation is only slightly short of ridiculous, but at least it seems to amuse Rory's mother. When Jacob is away, scrounging food from somewhere, she laughs aloud and looks at Rory. "Where did you find this Jacob, exactly?" she says. " He's…very strange."

Rory makes a strangled, noncommittal noise.

"Never mind," his mother says, and Rory can practically see her mentally dismissing Jacob in favor of focusing on the mission. "So here's what I found out…"

They spend an hour or so making plans to retrieve the papers the next day, and then when they're done Jacob comes back in to continue being annoying. And then, when Jacob is halfway through telling a story about this assassin he once knew that married a templar (and Rory is sitting there  _ praying  _ his mother doesn't realize Jacob's talking about her), he suddenly stops, his shit eating grin melting off his face like snow in sunlight. He turns bright, bright red, excuses himself, and bolts for the door.

Rory interprets this to mean that Jacob's visit has ended, leaving Arno in control of his own body. He doesn't come back out until after Rory's mother has excused herself to go to bed. When he finally does reappear, he looks grumpy and tired. "So… I'm going to have to pretend to be Jacob pretending to be me until you and your mother leave," he says.

"Yes," Rory says, hesitantly. Poor Arno looks really, really miserable. "But I mean… at least maman isn't going to remember you, right? Not like you really are, anyway, you're just going to be that crazy guy we met in Paris that one time. No messed up timelines."

"I guess," Arno mutters. Then he sighs. "And look who's here  _ now _ ."

The room still looks empty to Rory, apart from the two of them. "Who?"

"It's your mother," Arno says. "Hello, Aveline."

"Hi," Rory says.

"She says hello," Arno says. His tone is very flat. He sounds like a man that is just 110% done with life at the moment. "And she says she remembers this trip—oh, and now she's putting two and two together. And…  _ now  _ she's laughing at me."

"Sorry," Rory says. "But I mean… really, if you want to be mad at anyone, you should be mad at Jacob. I didn't tell him to be quite that ridiculous. He decided to do that all on his own."

Arno sighs. "Yea," he says. "But I can't be mad at Jacob. It's like kicking a puppy, he just looks at me with these sad eyes, it's pathetic really…"

Rory grins and looks down so Arno won't see. His last visit to Elena, he'd heard some loud thumping from one of the bedrooms and naturally assumed it was his parents, at it again, possibly with that  _ other  _ templar. But no, Elena had told him it was Arno in there with Jacob. So it's a little hard to take his complaining seriously right now.

The conversation shifts onto other subjects. It's interesting to have a face to face conversation about visiting with someone that's part of a different group, and they stay up late talking. Finally, somewhere close to midnight, Rory's mother borrows Arno's body to tell him (sternly) that it's time for bed. Then she hugs him, tight and long, and Rory hugs her back. He gets to see his mother every day. She doesn't get to see him anymore. He closes his eyes, and even though she's not in her own body she still  _ feels  _ like his mother.

"I love you, maman," he says.

"I love you too, Rory. And you're going to make me proud, tomorrow." She gives him a quick kiss on the cheek, and then she is gone and Arno is quickly pulling away.

The next day, when Rory goes with his mother to track down her missing papers, he does everything he can to live up to the pride she's placed in him.

-//-

In the future, Aveline comes back from her visit to Arno-in-the-past, and tracks down Arno-in-the-present. He's sitting on the couch, trying to read something on his tablet while Jacob sits with his head on his lap, talking a mile a minute about something Aveline doesn't even try to follow. Arno nods every once in a while, making little distracted humming noises of agreement. His fingers move absentmindedly through Jacob's hair, and the other man leans into the touch like a cat, grinning through his mile a minute chatter.

"Arno," she says. "So I was just on this visit with you, where you met my son, and I  _ think  _ you pretended to be Jacob—"

For a second, Arno looks confused. Then realization dawns as the memory comes back, and he stops stroking Jacob long enough to give him a not entirely friendly, not entirely angry smack on the side of the head. "I forgot," he says. "I'm still angry with you for that."

Jacob sticks his tongue out, and then sits up to, presumably, kiss Arno until he forgets his annoyance. Aveline sighs— _ apparently _ the conversation is over—and walks away when Jacob starts moaning into Arno’s mouth.

Honestly, there's a time and a place.


	133. Chapter 133

It's rare for Jacob to be alone these days, both because he prefers it that way and because the massive pack of visitors staying together in their safe house makes privacy difficult. But today is one of those odd days when no one else is really around, and so Jacob parks himself at the kitchen table to fiddle with his hidden blade. It really is _his_ , the one he'd had in his first life. He'd come back with it, and even though it's bulkier than most of the others, weighed down by his poison darts and the grappling hook (that he's not supposed to use anymore, because _cameras_ , apparently), and Jacob doesn't typically get overattached to the things he owns, he's been through so much with this blade. He's never getting rid of it.

Which means he has to fix it—he'd jammed the blade on his last mission, and it's no good at all with the actual weapon stuck half extended all the time. So, as long as he's stuck on his own anyway, he takes the opportunity to dismantle the gauntlet and see what he can do to get it working again.

When he's about halfway done, and just starting to think it's time for a break, Jacob hears giggling from behind him and turns to see Grace hovering in the doorway. "What?" he asks. "What's so funny?"

"Where's your _boyfriend_ ?" Grace asks. She's five, so Jacob decides to ignore the burst of renewed giggling that follows. Besides, he's still getting used to the fact that yes, actually, Arno _is_ his boyfriend, and he likes being reminded. Even if he’s also being laughed at.

"He's with your mum," Jacob says. "They went out for supplies."

"For the wedding?" Grace asks. She climbs up onto the chair next to him and grins.

"I think so," Jacob says. It's a pretty safe bet—Evie and Desmond are getting married in less than a week, and it seems like no one's been doing or talking about anything else for ages.

"Are you ever getting married?" Grace asks.

"Are you?"

"Ew! _No_."

"Well, neither am I."

Grace wrinkles her face up. "Why don't you marry your boyfriend?" she asks. "Don't you like him?"

"Because…it's not really…" he sighs. "I would if I could, but two men can't marry each other, that's the law. But I don't want to be with anyone else but Arno, so I'm just not going to get married to anyone."

"Nuh uh," Grace says. "You can marry a boy, my friend Jacky at school said so."

"Well your friend Jacky at school is in Kindergarten," Jacob says. "So I don't really think she knows about this stuff."

"But her uncle Mark married _his_ boyfriend," Grace says. "And then they went to Disney World on their honeymoon and I want to go to Disney World, can you marry Arno and then go to Disney World and take me with?"

"Wait," Jacob says. "What?"

"It's really fun," Grace says. "There are princesses _and_ roller coasters."

Jacob doesn't say anything—he's still trying to process the fact that if Grace is right there is no reason he can't marry Arno. In this time period, it's _legal_. Eventually, when he doesn't say anything, Grace gets bored and announces she's leaving. Jacob stays still for a few more moments, then takes a deep breath and texts Evie.

 

> **Evieeeeeeeee**
> 
> Why did nobody tell me gay marriage is legal in this time?
> 
> What?
> 
> You didn't know?
> 
> Of course not! It's not like it just comes up in normal conversation, does it?
> 
> Desmond told me about a month after we got to the future.
> 
> We were at a grocery store, and he kept complaining about all those celebrity magazines they put next to the checkout. And one of them was talking about these two famous actors that were about to marry.
> 
> And they were both men, so I asked him if that was legal and he said yes.
> 
> And you didn't tell me?
> 
> I assumed you would go out of your way to find out as soon as we got to this time.
> 
> I'm sorry, Jacob, I really thought you knew.
> 
> I didn't.
> 
> Oh, God.
> 
> What?
> 
> I'd marry Arno in a second if he asked, but if I ask him…
> 
> Do you think he'd say yes?
> 
> Evie?
> 
> I don't know.
> 
> I guess you'll have to ask and find out, won't you?

And… well yes, that is the only way he's ever going to find out if Arno will marry him. But what if he says no, will they have to break up? They've only had a year and a half together, so Jacob doesn't want to ruin it already. And what if he says _yes_ , Jacob's only just getting used to having a boyfriend, he can't even wrap his head around the idea of a husband.

His phone vibrates in his hand and Jacob looks down—Arno.

 

> **< 3 Arno <3**
> 
> We're just about to get back, can you come help us with the bags?
> 
> Yea.
> 
> Hey, Arno?
> 
> What?
> 
> Jacob, what?
> 
> I miss you
> 
> It's been an hour
> 
> I miss you anyway
> 
> And I love you
> 
> I love you too.

Jacob drops his phone and stands up to help bring the bags inside. He's going to have to ask, he's _definitely_ going to have to ask. And the thought terrifies him, it makes his heart speed up the way it does when he's fighting for his life, but he has to ask. Not today, not right now when everyone's busy with normal things. He'll give it some real thought, he'll come up with some way to do it _perfectly_ , and then he'll ask. Because maybe Arno will say no, _but maybe he'll say yes_.


	134. Chapter 134

"When did this get to be normal?" Edward asks, giving Ezio a little kick to make sure he has his attention.

"Hmm?" Ezio stirs from his customary place on the far end of the bed. "What?"

"We used to only sleep together on special occasions," Edward complains. "Now you're practically moved in."

Ezio shrugs. "Well, Haytham sleeps with Aveline and Shay now, so there's no chance of him coming in here and complaining. There's no real reason we can't sleep together whenever we want."

"But it's not special anymore," Edward says.

Ezio raises his eyebrows. "Are you bored?" he asks, in a tone that's very close to disbelief. "That… doesn't really happen."

"No," Edward says quickly. "No, you're very creative."

"Oh," Ezio says. "Well—good."

"But I just think we could shake it up once in a while," Edward says.

 “I think I'm not good enough for you,” Ezio says, in a voice that would sound deadly serious if Edward hadn't known him a lifetime and a half already. “I think I'm offended.”

"Shut it,” Edward says, giving Ezio another kick. Ezio grins widely in response.

“Look,” he says. “I don't know about you, but I'm still having fun with this. I like that it's turned into sleeping together whenever, instead of once in a while. I still spend the night with other people when I'm out on missions, don't you? That's enough variety for me.”

“Of course I sleep with other people,” Edward says. “But we're here more often than not. Maybe I want to sleep with other people here once in a while.”

“I'm pretty sure we're the only two people in this safe house interested in sex without strings,” Ezio says. “So I don't know who else you think you could talk into your bed.”

Edward thinks about this for a moment. "I bet we could get Jacob in here. He's slept with both of us before, I bet he'd do it again."

"You think we could get Jacob away from Arno," Ezio says. "Really?"

"Hang on," Edward says, hopping off the bed. "I'll go ask him. Can't hurt to try, right?"

"I guess not," Ezio says. And is it Edward's imagination, or is Ezio _laughing_ at him? "Good luck."

Edward throws on a pair of pants, because he doesn't particularly want to walk out and find one of the girls there. He does have _some_ idea of how to behave properly. Then he goes looking for Jacob, and finds him up on the roof with Arno. It looks like they're working on Arno's English—he's stumbling his way through saying something or other when Edward walks in, Jacob occasionally saying something either in response or in correction.

"Jacob!" Edward calls. "Do you want to come have sex with me and Ezio?"

Arno flinches. Visibly.

"Ah—" Jacob frowns at Edward. "I'm kind of… I mean, Arno's here. And it didn't work out super well with the three of us last time."

"It's just for fun," Edward says. "We all know you and Arno are a thing, but—" he brightens as an idea occurs to him. "Hey, Arno, you can come too!"

"No!" Arno says. He stands up, positioning himself in a way that very clearly puts himself between Jacob and Edward. "Stop it, Edward."

"Oh come on," Edward says. "I'm not trying to get between the two of you. I was just in bed with Ezio, and I was thinking hey, maybe it would be cool to shake things up a little, add someone else into the mix…" He shrugs. "It's just sex, it's not a big deal."

He's not entirely sure how much of this Arno actually understood—he's got the slightly blank look of a person that's just been smacked in the face with a whole speech in a language he's not quite fluent in. But then he stiffens, and reaches one hand down to grasp Jacob's shoulder in a tight, possessive grip. "Jacob…" he hesitates, visibly struggling for words. When he fails to find the ones he wants, he half shrugs and says, "Jacob's _mine_."

Behind him, Jacob is beaming like a child at Christmas.

"Oh," Edward says, as the silence stretches out uncomfortably. "Okay."

Arno keeps glaring at him until Edward turns around and leaves—he's very dejected when he gets back to his room and flops down on the bed next to Ezio.

"I take it Jacob won't be coming," Ezio says.

"Nope," Edward grumbles.

"That's alright," Ezio says. "You still have me. And I still have a great many creative ideas for things to do, just the two of us."

"Yea?" Edward says. "Like what?"

Ezio tells him.

It is in fact a very creative idea, and when they actually try it out, Edward finds himself cheered immensely.


	135. Chapter 135

He expected to be nervous, but he's not. Here, on the night before his wedding, Desmond feels nothing but a kind of sure, steady calm. There have only been a handful of times in his life when Desmond felt this confident in his path. The first day he spent outside the Farm's walls, when he realized he'd  _ done  _ it, and he was free. When Edward first came to the future, and he realized his visitors were coming back to him. The day he'd gone to find Elena, and held her in his arms for the first time.

And now. Tonight. Because in the morning, he's going to be married, and he is absolutely certain that he's doing the right thing.

It's past midnight now, and Desmond knows he should be in bed, but he just can't sleep. The day had been absolutely insane, the morning full of last minute preparations, the evening taken up with Edward's carefully planned bachelor party. Desmond has been bracing himself for disaster ever since he'd realized Edward was actually serious about doing this, but the whole thing had been surprisingly restrained. They'd gone out for a nice dinner. Edward had taken it on himself to give Desmond some tips on married life, which Haytham had tried very hard not to listen to. It had been… well, overall it had just been nice. To be surrounded by people that care about him, all wishing him the best.

There had also been rum, but Edward had done such a surprisingly good job with every other aspect of the dinner that Desmond decided to overlook that.

But now Desmond is too keyed up to sleep, so he'd come down to the kitchen to just… think, for a while. He's sitting at the table, been sitting there for maybe half an hour, when he hears footsteps in the doorway and turns around to see Jacob standing there.

"You're still up," Jacob says. "I was sort of worried you'd have gone to bed already."

Desmond shrugs. "Can't sleep."

"Don't blame you," Jacob says, easing into a chair close to Desmond's. "Big day."

Well that's a bit of an understatement.

"Anyway," Jacob goes on. "I need to talk to you."

"About Evie?" Desmond asks, and he's entirely unsurprised when Jacob nods. To be perfectly honest, he'd expected this conversation weeks ago.

"I'm going to tell you the same thing I told Henry when Evie married him," Jacob says.

"Alright," Desmond says.

"I like you," Jacob says. "I really do, you're a good guy. And I know Evie likes you, because frankly she wouldn't be marrying you if she didn't."

"I'd hope not," Desmond agrees.

"She wouldn't," Jacob assures him. "But I just want you to make sure you really appreciate that you're about to marry someone special, okay? There's no one quite like Evie in the whole world, and you're going to marry her. So just don't ever forget that, okay? Don't ever forget how lucky you are."

"I won't," Desmond says. "Trust me, Jacob—"

"Shh," Jacob says, holding up a hand. "You're messing up my whole talk thing."

"Sorry," Desmond says, hiding a grin. "Go on."

"Right," Jacob says. "Where was I?" He thinks for a second. "Oh yea. If you ever hurt her—"

"I'll have you to deal with?" Desmond asks.

"What? God no, you'll have  _ her  _ to deal with. And while we're on the subject, if she ever hurts you, you can definitely come complain to me because I completely get it. I mean, look at this." He rolls up his sleeve to show Desmond a fresh bruise there. "She gets violent when she's annoyed."

Desmond laughs, and after a second spent poking at his bruise, Jacob smiles as well. "See," he says. "This happened last time too. I was trying so hard to do the protective brother thing, and I just kept looking at Henry and going 'this guy's going to make my sister really, really happy,' and I couldn't get through it."

"I hope so," Desmond says fervently.

"You will," Jacob assures him.

"Do you think…" Desmond tries not to compare himself to Henry. He really tries. But every once in a while the doubt will kind of creep up on him, and just now he has to ask. "Am I going to make her as happy as Henry did?"

"Sure," Jacob says. "Not in the same way, because you're not the same guy, but yea. She loves you, so why wouldn't you make her happy?"

"Thanks, Jacob," Desmond says.

"Yep." He stands up and claps Desmond on the shoulder. "Anyway, I'm exhausted, and I'm not the one getting married in the morning, so I have a feeling I'm going to be able to sleep like a bab—Evie!"

"What?" Desmond says, turning around to see what Jacob's looking at. He should have guessed—it's Evie, standing in the doorway and looking at Jacob with raised eyebrows. He grins. "Hey, Evie."

She smiles back. "Desmond."

"No," Jacob says, almost lunging out of his chair toward his sister. "It's your wedding day. You two aren't supposed to see each other until the ceremony."

"It's the night before," Evie objects, but she rolls her eyes at Desmond and lets Jacob tug her away.

"It's past midnight," Jacob says.

"That doesn't count."

"It absolutely counts!"

"And since when were you this superstitious, anyway?"

Their bickering fades away as they go farther upstairs, and Desmond is left alone in the kitchen again, half laughing, half smiling, and entirely happy.


	136. Chapter 136

Desmond's been counting down the seconds to walking down the aisle. Part of him feels a little silly, doing it—he never thought he'd have a wedding like this (a real wedding, an actual ceremony). He never thought he'd want one, but as much as Evie might try to hide it, she's a bit of a traditionalist. It's worth all the fuss, to see the excitement that seems to burst out of her, like it's too much for her usually tight self-control to keep contained. Desmond loves seeing that, and he'd do a lot more than this to see that excited side of her come out.

He can't wait to see her. When Desmond was very young, his mother had told him that she really believed in the importance of marriage, because it did miraculous things. It took two separate people, it joined them together, made them one. Desmond used to hate that description of marriage, because as far as he could tell, it only meant his mother was stuck with his father. Whatever he did to her, she would never be willing to leave him.

But now he understands. He's standing here, waiting for Evie to walk down the aisle toward him, and all Desmond can think of is how badly he wants to be with her. To be one with her, joined by something invisible and unknowable but _strong_. And yes, they have visiting, but this is something special and private, something that just the two of them can share.

And then the music starts, and everyone else is suddenly on their feet—

Desmond's eyes go to the far end of the room, and fix on Evie. She's smiling, and even from this distance, Desmond can tell that smile is aimed straight at him. He beams back at her, nervous and excited and not quite believing that this is really happening. He's been in love with Evie for years, since before they lived in the same era, even. But he's never felt that love fill him up quite like it does now, like—like when he was a kid, and found a bag full of chocolate somewhere. He'd eaten every last candy bar, and by the end of it he'd felt like he was literally about to burst out of his skin, like he couldn't force himself to sit still if he tried.

He's shaking slightly now. Excitement, not nerves.

Connor—his best man—puts a hand on his shoulder, to steady him. Desmond takes a breath and nods, just a little, and hopes Connor understands he means _thank you_.

The wedding goes mostly as planned. Desmond's just _waiting_ for something to go wrong, for Abstergo to come charging in with guns drawn, or Evie to show up as a visitor from the days before she died, and demand to know what's going on, or—or the Earth to just open up and _swallow_ him. But none of that happens. Grace starts crying a little in the middle (because she's five, first of all, and also because Haytham starts tearing up halfway through and the sight of her Dad crying clearly upsets her). And Elena apparently gets a visitor at some point, because Desmond glances over at her and sees her making faces at thin air. He manages not to laugh, just barely.

And then it's time for the vows. Desmond and Evie have discussed writing their own, but Desmond's glad they never quite found the time. When he opens his mouth to say "I do," he realizes he's all choked up and he's going to start crying if he has to say anything else. He's just so impossibly happy to be here, he's so lucky, so _grateful—_

And then Evie says it too, and her "I do" is just as choked up as his had been. But she smiles at him, and Desmond smiles back so widely he's half afraid his face is just going to split in two. And then it's over, and it's official, they're _married_ , and the world seems to fade around them as Desmond kisses his wife for the very first time.


	137. Chapter 137

Arno is in the kitchen, with Jacob. It looks like they'd sat down to play a game of chess, but somewhere along the way one of them (Jacob, probably) had gotten bored and started making modifications. When Shay walks in, about a third of the pieces are wearing little paper hats, and most of the pawns have tiny little faces drawn on in pencil. They've also raided what looks like every other game they keep in the safe house, so on top of the normal chess pieces, the board is crowded with the pieces from checkers, sorry, and monopoly. Some of the pieces also have the little weapons from Clue taped onto them.

Shay hesitates in the doorway, very confused, and watches as Jacob picks up an uno card from a stack sitting at his elbow. "Wild card!" he crows, tossing it down on the board between himself and Arno. "Red."

Arno curses and rolls a red, twenty sided die. "One," he grumbles, and Jacob laughs before moving one of his chess pieces (a grinning pawn with a tiny top hat) to Arno's side of the board.

"King me."

Arno hands him a checkers piece.

"Are you… does this game actually have rules?" Shay asks.

"Of course it does," Jacob says, without looking up. There's a strange look on his face, and it takes Shay a second to realize he's thinking. "And I'm winning."

"You're down a rook," Arno objects, pointing at a captured chess piece. "That's ten points, so actually I'm winning."

"I  _ am  _ a Rook," Jacob says.

"That has never worked," Arno says, with considerable patience. "It isn't working now. It's never  _ going  _ to work. You're down ten points."

"I don't under— _ what _ ?" Shay stares at the two of them in utter confusion. "Why?"

"Well," Jacob says. "There's a lot of new games in this century. I can't be bothered to learn the rules for all of them, so we're just sort of smashing them all together." He beams at Shay. "That way, I only have to learn  _ one  _ game. And, it's actually made chess interesting for the first time ever."

"But what's the point of making up a game no one but the two of you is ever going to learn to play?" Shay asks.

"The girls play sometimes," Arno says. He points to the little folded hat perched on one of his pawns. "Elena made all the hats, and Geraldine drew the faces."

"And both of them can beat me every time we play," Jacob grumbles. "Arno, I think we have to add in another game."

"Scrabble?" Arno suggests.

"Too much spelling."

"It's that or Battleship," Arno says. "Or we have to go back to the toy store, and I don't think they're going to let you back in after the giant teddy bear fiasco."

"Battleship's a possibility," Jacob says. "We don't have a navy in this game yet."

"You can't just  _ do  _ that to games, though," Shay says, interrupting the discussion. "It's a mess!"

"Let's not tell him about the time we tried to add Hungry, Hungry Hippos," Jacob whispers. Arno nods seriously.


	138. Chapter 138

This is before Ade settled into visiting—Edward can tell, because he recognizes the scene. He'd been here—he  _ is  _ here, passed out on the floor of the tavern, snoring and dead to the world. And Edward feels a surge of horrible anger toward his past self rise up in his chest suddenly—doesn't he know this is the last time? Doesn't he know he'll never get another chance after this? That the next time he sees Mary, she'll be dying in his arms?

Of course he doesn't. Because Edward hadn't. It was only in the aftermath that Edward started to look back on this night, and realize how important it was. How much he'd missed. At the time, he'd just thought it was going to be a normal evening. Him and Ade and Kidd, getting drunker than they should and having a marvelous time.

They'd never been together like that again. Not long after, everything had fallen apart, and Edward has spent a lifetime rewriting this night in his head. Imagining all the things he could have said to Kidd.

God, she's beautiful. Not like Caroline had been, not like Tessa. Not the way a woman is supposed to be. But there's something about her, even dressed like a man, that shines with a beauty Edward can't quite describe. She's beautiful the same way the sea is beautiful—because she's dangerous, and unpredictable. Because Edward looks at her and feels the same quiet awe he feels at the  _ Jackdaw's  _ wheel, the same fierce joy. He thinks he could have spent the rest of his life with her and never understood her completely, never stopped learning new things about her.

He turns slightly, and realizes Ade is staring at him with a kind of blank incomprehension.

"What're you doing here?" he mutters, words slurring together. "You're  _ there _ ." And he points in the general direction of Edward's unconscious past self.

"You are very drunk," Edward tells him gravely. It's rare for Ade to get drunk like this, he's usually much better at holding his alcohol. But—Edward remembers this night remarkably well, considering how drunk he himself had been at the time. Ade had drunk more than usual, and eventually blacked out.

Since he won't remember any of this anyway, Edward doesn't feel too concerned about breaking the timeline.

"I am very drunk," Ade agrees. Kidd—by far the most sober of the three, although she's had her share to drink—eyes him from the other side of the table, eyes sparkling with laughter. Edward aches.

"And you're very tired," Edward says.

Ade nods, a kind of jerky movement.

Edward puts his hand on Ade's shoulder. "Take a rest," he suggests.

"Yea," Ade says, eyes drooping. "Yea, 's a good idea."

Edward is in his body before his eyes have fully closed. For a second, Ade's drunkenness rolls in like a cloud across his mind, and Edward almost sways, but then the electric jolt of his own excitement burns it away. This is too important—Edward's not going to spend another lifetime regretting all the things he didn't say on this night.

He stands, and crosses to the other side of the table, where Kidd is. She eyes his sudden dexterity with suspicion, but Edward finds himself fumbling for words when he slides into the seat next to her. She smells—how could he have forgotten the smell of her? Part saltwater, part sea air, part something all her own.

"What's wrong with you, Ade?" she asks, voice purposefully upbeat. "You seem remarkably sober all of a sudden."

"Mary," Edward says. He half reaches for her hand then stops, uncertain. "It's Edward."

She glances at the other (younger, drunker,  _ stupider _ ) Edward where he lies on the floor. "What about him?"

"I'm Edward," Edward says.

"Wha—"

"I'm visiting Ade."

Her eyebrows pull together in confusion, and she bites her lip. After a long pause, Kidd says, "I'd almost believe you, because that would explain why you're suddenly acting so strange. Kenway's always been a strange one. And it's not like anyone else knows about visiting. But…" she looks again at the other Edward. "He never mentioned anyone else in this time can visit."

"It's complicated," Edward says. The words come out all in a rush, he needs so badly to have her understand and believe him. "He didn't really start visiting until he was older, but the thing about visiting is that even if you start late, sometimes you'll have random visits earlier. I didn't really start until I stole Walpole's robes, but I sort of remember meeting a lot of funny people when I was a kid." He takes a breath. "So… so Ade's not quite a visitor yet, but he will be." He hesitates, then adds, “Don't tell him.”

 

“Spoiling things for people?” Kidd teases. “I think that's your job.” She smiles, briefly, then nods a little. She still looks suspicious, but far less than a moment ago. “Alright. So you're visiting Ade. When are you supposed to be visiting from?"

"You'll never believe it."

Kidd gives him a skeptical look. "Because everything else you've told me about visiting has been so logical and normal? Try me, Kenway."

Edward flashes her a genuine smile of relief—if she's calling him by his own name, she must believe him. At least a little. "The future," he says. "It's the twenty first century. After we died, all us visitors came to Desmond's time. We got a second life, and it's been… it's…" He stops suddenly, unable to go on. How can he tell Kidd how great it is to have a second lifetime, when she's going to die for real soon? This time, when he starts to reach for her hand, he doesn't stop. Just squeezes tight, feeling the warmth and the pulse there.

She smiles just a little. "Well at least I know it's you," she says. "No one else would make up a story quite that insane."

"I know," Edward says. "It's mad, but it's true."

"Well…" Kidd hesitates, then goes on. "I've a mad story of my own to tell you. I was going to mention it tonight, but you…"

They both look at drunk Edward.

"Sorry," Edward says.

"It worked," Kidd says, voice trembling just a little. "When we were—when I was trying to get pregnant, it worked. I'm late, and I'm never late."

Edward isn't going to let go of her hand until this visit is over, but he takes his other hand, holds it over the place where their daughter is growing. For a second, Kidd looks surprised. Then she covers his hand with her own. "I know," Edward says, words choked with a horrible sadness. "I've met our daughter. I mean… not really met her. She's a visitor to the daughter of a friend, so I've spoken with her like that. And some of my visitors knew her before they died, so they've told me about her."

Kidd snorts. "Typical. I assume that's your fault, because I certainly can't pass visiting on to it. To her, I mean." She goes on, voice just a little higher than normal, like she's fighting to keep her emotions in check. "So I guess… from the way you're acting and the fact that you've never met her in person… we don't end well, do we?"

Edward shakes his head.

"Do I want to ask?"

"No," Edward says. "Christ, Mary, don't make me tell you."

"Alright."

Edward shivers as the silence stretches out between them, and a cold breeze blows by.

"What about the child?" Kidd asks at last. "Can you tell me about her?"

He nods. "She's amazing. Smart, and strong. She's a lot like you—took a man's name so she could sail."

Kidd's smile is thin and watery, but there's a sharp edge of pride to it now. "What name?"

"Jacob Kidd."

"A good name," she says. "What about… did she have a name before that? A true one?"

Edward almost tells her that Jacob Kidd  _ is  _ her true name. She's always seemed to prefer it, anyway. But then he thinks how Kidd objects less to being called  _ Mary  _ the closer they get, the way she lets him say her name now without shouting at him, and thinks he understands. And Elena had told him once, hadn't she?

"Hannah," he says at last. "When she was a little girl, she was called Hannah."

"And will I be a good mother?" Kidd asks, not looking at him. "Rough woman like me, living as a man—never thought I'd care for children, never thought mothering would matter, not until—" She takes a breath. "Not until it did."

Edward thinks he's going to break in two. "You gave your daughter everything," he says honestly. "Everything you ever could." And of course he means that she'd given their daughter her life, and then lost her own—but Edward can't quite bring himself to say it like that. He knows what it is to be told the date of your own death, and have it hang over you like a naked sword. He won't do that to someone he loves.

"Thank you," she says, and then suddenly—

Edward's not exactly sure which of them starts it, but they're kissing. And it's beautiful and sad, because he loves this woman, he's missed her so much it hurts. It hurts now, still, because this isn't going to last. It's a goodbye, and Edward has always hated goodbyes. But at least he gets to say it this time. Not those words, not exactly, but when they're close enough that Edward imagines he can feel her heartbeat against his chest, he pulls away an inch or two and says. "I love you."

"Edward…" Kidd looks up at him, in his borrowed body. She doesn't quite say  _ those  _ words, not exactly, but she says, "You're mad, Edward. You know that?" And he knows by the look in her eyes that she means the same thing—I love you, and goodbye, and everything else they'll never get another chance to say.

"I know," he says.

She kisses him again, and they go on like that until dawn breaks and Edward's visit ends. He comes back to himself, to his own body in the twenty first century, and for a moment the loss of Kidd is so fresh and sharp he almost sobs.

But when he closes his eyes, he can almost feel the weight of her in his arms, against him, almost taste the salt on her lips where she'd kissed him, almost hear the whispered echo of her voice. It's not enough, it will never be  _ enough _ . But it's more than he'd had before.


	139. Chapter 139

Evie wakes early, and cracks her eyes open to squint blearily at the clock. It's early, too early to be awake, and Evie curls back against Desmond with her eyes shut. They'd been up late the night before, first talking, and then…well, Evie doesn't quite know what to call it. Sex, making love… they don't quite seem to fit, not now, because it's not quite about the two of them anymore.

It's about the baby they're trying to have. The baby they've been trying to have for almost a year, now. Trying and failing.

Evie reaches one hand down to hold Desmond's, and puts the other on her bare stomach. After months of failed attempts to get pregnant, she can't help feeling empty. It is so frustrating, not to be able to control her own body. She is an assassin, and she can run, climb, fight—anything she wants her body to do, it will do. Anything but conceive.

Time and again, a bout of nausea or a late cycle has half convinced her that this is it, that she is finally carrying their child, only to have her hopes dashed. Now, for instance—she's missed an entire cycle, and so for a month she's been on pins and needles, hoping but not daring to believe. She wants so badly to talk to Desmond about all this, but it still feels strange. In her first lifetime, discussing something like this with any man, even her husband, would have been—not  _ inappropriate _ , exactly. Evie had done many things that were considered inappropriate for women in that time. It just hadn't been something she'd been comfortable with. It still isn't, and so even though Evie has seen Desmond buying tampons for Elena when she needs them, she's seen him comforting his daughter when she is cramping or miserable, Evie still won't talk to him about her own periods, even the missed ones that  _ might  _ mean she's finally pregnant.

She wants to, but first she has to be certain, and that means  _ waiting _ . The first time she was pregnant, she'd had to wait nearly five months, until she felt her daughter moving inside her, to be absolutely sure she was pregnant. Normally, Evie is perfectly capable of waiting as long as necessary for something she wants or needs, but  _ this _ ? No, this is hard.

She slips out of bed, suddenly restless, and half dresses. She always feels only half dressed in this century, and while the looser clothes are far more comfortable, they are also an adjustment. So many things are, really. When she is clothed, Evie glances back at Desmond where he still sleeps on the bed, and feels a fond smile growing across her face. Then she heads for the kitchen, thinking of food, and finds Jacob instead. He really  _ is  _ half dressed, wearing shorts and nothing else, and Arno's pressing him against the wall next to the stove. Judging by where he's touching Jacob and the noises Jacob is making, the shorts might not stay on long.

"Hey—" Evie taps Jacob on the shoulder, and he flicks his eyes sideways at her without pulling away from Arno.

"We just got started," he moans.

"We eat here," Evie says, but Jacob doesn't move until Arno does, pulling him away and out of the room. She watches them go, then turns back to the kitchen. The only other person there is Aveline, half laughing.

"They are in love," she says.

"And they can have their fun in private," Evie says. She does feel a bit guilty for interrupting, because she knows Jacob has waited almost a full lifetime for Arno, and that even now he's not getting as much sex as he wants. But really. They eat here. "Desmond and I manage perfectly well in our room."

"And how are things going?" Aveline asks. "In the bedroom?"

Evie opens her mouth, then closes it again. "Aveline," she manages at last. "I know we're friends, but I don't feel comfortable talking about what Desmond and I do together in private."

"No," Aveline says. "No, I didn't mean that. Just that I know you're trying to get pregnant."

Evie shakes her head. "I don't know," she says. "Still trying, I suppose. I just wish—every time my cycle is so much as a day late I get excited. I try not to, because every time I let myself get hopeful and then it turns out I'm just late, it's… crushing."

"I understand," Aveline says. "Shay and I had our first son easily, but when we tried for our second it took three years for me to get pregnant again. And not for lack of trying."

"I imagine you tried very frequently," Evie agrees.

Aveline nods. "I know that cycle of hope and then disappointment," she says. "It can be very difficult."

They sit together for a while, and Evie finds herself absurdly,  _ ridiculously _ , grateful to be here with this woman that understands. It is one thing to lie in bed with Desmond, knowing they've been trying and failing for close to a year to have a child. But Aveline is a woman that knows what it's like to  _ want  _ this, and to have her own body fail to provide. Suddenly, without wanting to, Evie gives a half sob and raises a hand to her mouth.

"I'm  _ sorry _ ," she says. "I don't know what's wrong with me."

"Nothing's wrong with you," Aveline says. "It's an emotional time." She half smiles as Evie tries to wipe away her tears. Evie feels foolish. "You're not bleeding now, are you?"

"No," Evie says. "No, as a matter of fact that's what's so terrible. I missed my last period, and—that hope and disappointment we were just talking about, it's just… I can't stand waiting, not knowing, for  _ months _ , maybe—"

"Did you take a pregnancy test?" Aveline interrupts.

Evie stops in the middle of her rant. "A what?"

"It's the twenty first century now," Aveline says. "You can buy a pregnancy test at any convenience store, take it home, test it with your urine, and it tells you if you're pregnant or not."

"You urinate on it?" Evie asks. "To see if you're  _ pregnant _ ?"

"Yes," Aveline says. "Evie, we can go out right now and you'll know in less than an hour if you're pregnant or not."

Evie almost starts crying again because she wants so badly to know for sure. One way or the other. But something like that can't be true, can it? "It's only been a month," she says. "It happens sometimes. How can a test like that work?"

"I don't know," Aveline says. "I agree, it sounds ridiculous, but it does work."

"Then I want one," Evie says. "Will you show me?"

-//-

Aveline will show her, it turns out. She will drag Evie out of the safe house then and there, and bring her straight to the nearest store to buy a pregnancy test. Evie eyes it distrustfully, but Aveline continues to swear by the thing so Evie eventually gives in. Aveline suggests using it right then and there, but Evie wants to go home.

If she's going to pee on a stick, she's going to do it in private.

And that is how she comes to be sitting on the toilet, determinedly looking anywhere but at that stick. She's not even sure she believes it, but she doesn't want it to say no. Instead she looks at the wall, at the blob of toothpaste near the ceiling (Geraldine had thrown it there once in a fit of temper), at the shelf of shampoos and soaps (Ezio's on one end, a collection of at least half a dozen products, ranging all the way down to Altair's single plain bar of soap on the other). The bathroom, like every other room in the safe house, is filled with personality. It's bursting at the seams under the force of the great mass of people that live here.

Evie takes confidence from that, from remembering that she is not alone, not so long as she is here. She looks down at the stick, and it's telling her she's pregnant, and Evie laughs in surprise at the sight. She finishes her business in the bathroom as quickly as she can and goes hurrying out, so quickly that she nearly runs into Desmond outside the kitchen.

"Evie," he says, grinning. He has this way of smiling at her that Evie's never seen him use with anyone else. "I haven't seen you all morning."

"I went out with Aveline," Evie says. "I had an errand to run, and Aveline helped me with it."

"Anything interesting?" Desmond asks.

"That depends," Evie says. She holds her hand up, palm up, the pregnancy test resting there for him to see. "Because I can't quite believe that this is real."

"You—" Desmond looks down at the stick, then up at Evie, and she knows by his face that he trusts this thing. "You're pregnant."

"I'm pregnant."

"I can't believe it," Desmond says, and his smile has a different quality to it now, giddy and proud. "We're going to have a baby!"

She laughs and surges toward him, catching his giddiness like it's something contagious. When they kiss, Evie feels Desmond's hand on her side, drifting across her body to where the baby must even now be growing. Evie rests her hand on top of his, and suddenly she wants so badly to be with him. She is tense with the wanting, with the knowledge that she loves Desmond and he loves her, and that in a few months their child will be the living, breathing proof of that. For a moment she forgets where they are and who else is there, she's thinking only of Desmond—

"Hey!"

Evie pulls back when she feels the tap on her shoulder, and sees Jacob standing there with his hands on his hips and an exaggerated look of disapproval on his face. "Evie!" he says, in mock horror, gesturing toward the kitchen. "We  _ eat  _ here."

Evie rolls her eyes, but even though Jacob is being sarcastic he does have a point. She takes a step away from Desmond and smooths back her hair. But she's still smiling.


	140. Chapter 140

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm having a bad day, have some Disney World.

Grace has wanted to go to Disney World since the first time she saw a commercial for it on TV. One of her friends went over Christmas break, and she said it was the most fun thing ever and she got to meet a real princess and even though Daddy says they're just playing dress up, Grace thinks it's still probably close enough.

"You know we can't always do things other families do," Maman says when Grace asks. "I think Disney World might just be a little bit too public for us."

"We can't go  _ ever _ ?" Grace asks.

"I don't want to say that," Maman says. But then she doesn't say anything else, and that means the same as no.

"But there's princesses!" Grace wails, and runs into her bedroom to sulk. She throws herself on her bed (dramatically) and turns around so she's facing the wall. She has a row of stuffed animals and dolls lined up there, all carefully arranged in a very specific order, most favorite to least favorite.

She has all the Disney princesses.  _ And  _ Mickey Mouse.

Eventually, Daddy comes looking for her. Grace feels the bed dip when he sits down next to her, and she knows it's Daddy because he always comes to cheer her up when she's sad. But she doesn't look at him. "Evie and Jacob got to meet a  _ queen _ ," she informs him. "Why don't I get to see princesses?"

"Grace—"

"I  _ know  _ we have to keep secrets and stuff because we're different from other families," she says. "But I'm tired of being different! Can't we just be like everyone else for a little while?"

"Grace."

" _ What _ , Daddy?"

He sighs. "I know you're disappointed, but I don't like your tone very much."

She turns around and hugs Daddy. "Sorry," she says. "I'm sorry, I just want to go see to Disney World really, really bad."

"I know," he says. "You've been asking for years now, and so me and your papa and maman have been talking about it, and we think your birthday might be a good time to go."

Grace's mouth drops open. "Really, Daddy?"

"I bought the tickets this morning," he tells her.

"But Maman said no!"

"I think she was trying to keep it a surprise until we could all tell you together," Daddy says. "So I want you to go apologize to her for running away, okay?"

"Okay," Grace says. She slips off the bed and half runs to the door, then stops. "Is everyone coming?"

"Some of us."

"Papa and Maman and Geraldine?"

"Of course."

"What about Elena?" Grace frowns, anxiously. Elena is thirteen, maybe she's too old for Disney World. "Is Elena coming?"

"Elena is very excited."

"Who else?" Grace asks. "Is Desmond and Evie's baby coming?"

"Desmond and Evie's baby hasn't been born yet."

"Oh yea." That would be silly. "Are Desmond and Evie coming?"

"Evie can't travel until she has the baby," Daddy says. "So Desmond's going to stay with her. But Grandpa and Ezio are coming. And Jacob and Arno are coming."

"Is Connor coming?" Grace asks hopefully. She loves  _ both  _ of her big brothers, but Connor is grumpier than Desmond. Maybe if he came to Disney World, he would smile more.

"No," Daddy says, smiling a little bit less. "He said… he was busy."

"Oh," Grace says. "He's busy a lot, isn't he?"

"I'm sure he would come if he could," Daddy says.

" _ I'm  _ not," Grace says. But then she remembers she's supposed to be saying sorry to Maman, and goes running off to find her.

-//-

Their safe house is in Ohio, and Disney World is in Florida. Daddy shows Grace on a map where they're going and how they're getting there, just like he does when they have to move to a new safe house. Then Grandpa comes and scribbles all over the map and Daddy rolls his eyes but Grace thinks it's funny.

"I've been to Florida," Grandpa says.

"Yea?" Grace says. "Did you go to Disney World?"

Grandpa shakes his head and laughs. "No," he says. "It was a few centuries before Disney World."

"Wow," Grace says. "I keep forgetting how old you are, Grandpa."

He sticks his tongue out at her.

"Daddy!" Grace shouts, pointing an accusatory finger at Grandpa. "He's being mean!"

"She's tattling," Grandpa complains.

"Maybe I should come with you," Altair says, walking into the room to frown at Grandpa's map drawing. "It looks like you need another adult on your trip."

"Please," Daddy says.

"No," Grandpa whines. "No, don't let him come, he's such a killjoy."

"Maybe he wants to see princesses," Grace says. "Altair, you can come and see princesses with us if you want."

Daddy and Grandpa start bickering while Altair kneels down in front of her. "Grace," he says, in a quiet, serious voice. "I have a very important job for you when you go to Disney World, alright?"

Grace nods. She  _ never  _ gets to do important jobs because she's the youngest. That's why she can't wait for Desmond and Evie to have their baby, and then she won't be the littlest kid anymore. "What is it?" she whispers back.

"I have to stay here," he says. "But I want you to take lots of pictures, and then when you get back, you can show them to me and it will be just as good as being there. Do you think you can do that?"

"I think so," Grace says. "Can I give  _ you  _ an important job?"

He tilts his head just slightly in a nod.

"Can you make Connor come?" Grace asks. "I don't ever get to see him have fun."

Altair hesitates. "That's a very difficult job, Grace," he says at last. "I don't think he wants to come."

"Will you try?" Grace begs. "Please, please,  _ please _ ? Ezio says you're the best assassin there is, can't you make Connor have fun?" She's not exactly sure what assassins do, but Geraldine says they can do  _ anything _ .

"I can try," Altair says.

-//-

But when they leave for the airport on Grace's birthday, Connor doesn't come with. Grace is sad at first, but Maman tells her that she's not allowed to be sad at Disney World, and so Grace pretend smiles, and then she forgets that she's upset and starts really smiling. She's never stayed in a hotel before (the smelly motel next to the highway they used once when they were moving safehouses doesn't count). This one is big and has a  _ huge  _ bed. "Look!" Grace says when she sees it. She's with Papa, looking around the room while everyone else brings the suitcases in. "Look, look! You and Daddy and Maman can do your exercises."

"What?"

"Elena says when you close the door and make noises, you're doing exercises. And Geraldine says you do them  _ naked _ ." She giggles, because that's silly, and why would anyone want to do exercises naked anyway?

"Maman wears clothes," Geraldine calls, running through the door. Behind her, Grandpa is stuck with an armful of suitcases. "She wears laundry-eh."

"Lingerie," Grandpa corrects.

"Okay," Papa says brightly, clapping his hands.

Grace giggles again. "Your face looks like a tomato."

"Who wants to go to Disney World?"

"I do!" Geraldine yells.

"Me first!" Grace shouts. "It's my birthday!"

"What did I miss?" Daddy asks, following Grandpa in. Everyone else comes crowding in after him, and the hotel room is almost as crowded as home is.

"Edward's teaching us about lingerie," Geraldine says.

Daddy frowns at Grandpa. "Can't I leave you alone for thirty seconds?"

"He needs a babysitter," Elena says. "I can babysit him!"

"Technically I'm your great-grandfather," Grandpa says. " _ And  _ your ancestor."

"Grandpa's old!" Grace crows, and then shrieks with laughter as Grandpa chases her out of the room toward the elevator.

-//-

The parking lot at Disney World is so big, they have to take a train to get to the front gate. Daddy says it's called a monorail, but Grace just knows it's the coolest train she's ever been on. "I'm going to be a monorail driver when I grow up," Grace says.

"You can be whatever you want," Daddy says.

"And then I can get free tickets to Disney World," Grace says.

"Well, it sounds like you've thought this out very well," Daddy says.

"I thought you wanted to be a cook that only makes doughnuts," Geraldine says.

"That was last week," Grace tells her. She tugs on Daddy's shirt. "Are we there yet?"

"Almost," Daddy says. "Look." He points out the window and Grace starts jumping up and down when she sees an actual real life princess castle.

"Daddy!" Grace says, reaching over to hug him tight without looking away from the castle. "I'm  _ so happy _ , Daddy."

"Good," Daddy says, hugging her back. "I'm happy that you're happy."

"This is the best birthday ever."

"Great," Jacob says. "So we can just turn around and go home now, yea? If it's  _ already _ the best birthday ever?"

"No!"

"He's just teasing," Arno says. He gives Jacob a little thump on the arm. "Stop teasing."

The monorail slides to a stop, and Grace grabs Daddy's hand to drag him out. "Come on, Daddy, you're so slow!"

-//-

Grandpa gets lost right away when they get into the park.

"He was  _ just  _ here," Daddy complains. "Honestly, I can't turn my back on him for thirty seconds."

"Maybe he went exploring," Grace says.

"More likely he went to get himself in trouble," Daddy complains. "If he gets us kicked out of here…"

He doesn't finish the threat, but just kind of shakes his head like Grandpa's going to be in big trouble. Grandpa is always in big trouble.

A crowd of bigger kids wearing matching T-shirts hurries past them, and a woman that looks like their teacher follows, shouting directions.

"That's what we need," Daddy says, watching them go. "Matching shirts."

"No," Papa says, pointing to a boy even younger than Grace. He's wearing something that looks like a backpack, but has a strap for his maman to hold onto. "You need a child leash for Edward."

"Don't tempt me," Daddy says.

"Grandpa," Elena says. She's reading the map she'd picked up when they came in. "I think I know where he is."

Daddy leans over to look at the map, and rolls his eyes. "There's a pirate ride," he says. "Of course."

"Grandpa says he used to be a real pirate," Grace announces. "But I think he's telling a story." She catches Arno looking at her, and says (because sometimes he still doesn't know what things mean in English), "That means lying."

"He really was a pirate," Ezio says.

"But like he pirated music or movies, right?" Geraldine asks. "Not like the kind of pirate that looks for buried treasures."

"Yes he was," Papa assures her. "He had a very beautiful ship called the  _ Jackdaw _ . She was—"

"Look!" Grace interrupts. "Cotton candy, can we get cotton candy?"

"Not until we find Grandpa," Daddy says. "Let's go."

-//-

They find him at last, and Grandpa promises not to wander off anymore. But then he winks at Grace, and she's pretty sure he's going to wander off immediately. She hugs his knees and looks up at him. "Please don't get lost again," she says. "Then we have to go look for you, and it's my  _ birthday _ . I want to see princesses!"

Grandpa gives a big, dramatic sigh. "Okay," he says. "I will try to behave myself."

They split up after that, though, because nobody can agree where they want to go first. Ezio, Edward, Jacob, and Arno go running off to find something fun to do. Daddy catches Arno before they leave, and says, "You're the only one I trust to keep them under control. So please, please, keep them from doing anything stupid.”

"I will try my best," Arno says. "But there's three of them."

Then all four of them are gone.

"Grandpa?" Elena says. "Can I take Geraldine and go on some rides?"

"Are you going to be careful?" Daddy asks.

"I'm thirteen," Elena says. "I'm old enough to go on missions, aren't I old enough to wander around a theme park?"

Daddy nods. "Yes you are," he admits.

"You can go with her," Maman tells Geraldine. "But only if you stay with Elena the whole time and do as she says."

"Okay."

"And keep your phones on," Papa adds. "And remember to drink water, because it's really hot here, and don't talk to strangers, and—"

"We got it, we got it!" Geraldine says. Then she and Elena are gone too, and Grace realizes that she gets to stay with Daddy and Maman and Papa. She never gets to do that—there's always people around, but today they're going to pay attention just to her.

She looks up hopefully at her parents, and they're all looking back at her. Grace grins and bounces a little on her toes. "Princess time?"

-//-

The rest of the day is full of princesses. They see a parade with singing princesses, and then they see a show with dancing princesses, and then Grace waits in a long line and gets to meet Rapunzel (or someone playing dress up as Rapunzel, like Daddy keeps saying). And Rapunzel is her favorite princess, and she gives Grace a hug and says her braids are pretty.

And there are so many other things to do—rides and shows and a billion things to look at. Grace really likes the merry go round (because it's named after Cinderella, who is a princess), and Maman takes her on it three times.

After that, Grace starts feeling really tired. They go to get dinner and Grace leans on Daddy while she chews on a piece of pizza and tries to keep her eyes open.

"Are you tired, Grace?" Papa asks, leaning over to brush her sweaty hair off her forehead.

"No," she says, forcing her eyes wide. "'m awake."

Papa smiles like he knows she's probably telling a story, but he kisses the top of her head and doesn't argue. Then he goes back to talking with Maman and Daddy, and Grace loses the fight to keep her eyes open. She drops off to sleep.

-//-

They stay at Disney World for five days. Every day after the first day, Grace wakes up before sunrise, jumps on Maman and Papa and Daddy in bed (they don't do their naked exercises in the hotel) and tells them it's time to wake up and go already. Then Daddy tells her no, it's too early, but he lets her sleep in their bed, all squished up between them until everyone else starts waking up too.

Then they go back to Disney World, and they find something  _ new  _ to do that's amazing and fun. Grace is pretty sure it just keeps growing overnight, because every day she finds more and more stuff she hasn't seen before. One day it's a ride, another day it's a parade—one day it's a garbage can that walks around and  _ talks _ . It tells jokes and when Grace announces it's her birthday, it sings happy birthday to her.

Grace can't wait to tell her friends at school about  _ that _ .

Sometimes they go in gift shops, and Grace tries to get people to buy her all the princess stuff. Grandpa usually gives in pretty easy. Daddy caves once or twice. Maman says she should think about finding presents for their friends that stayed at home instead of buying things for herself, but that's fun too so Grace doesn't really mind.

She remembers to take pictures for Altair, too. She's too little to have her own phone, but Maman lets Grace borrow hers to take pictures. So she gets lots of pictures of princesses, and some of her thumb, and a few of some other stuff. Some of Edward and Ezio being silly. And Geraldine likes to do funny poses in front of her favorite rides, so Grace takes pictures of those too. And then some of Elena, even though she says she keeps telling Grace not to because she has pimples and her hair doesn't look good. Daddy says she's just being a teenager and she'll want the memories someday.

They stay in the park all day. After the first day, Grace doesn't have any problem staying awake. Once, they even stay late enough to see a fireworks show. Daddy puts Grace on his shoulders so she can see better, and she hangs on tight while she stares up at the sky, not even blinking as she drinks in every detail.

At the end of every day, Grace falls asleep in the rental car while they drive back to the hotel. Daddy or Papa pick her up and carry her back to the bed she shares with Elena and Geraldine, and Grace sleeps until just before dawn, when she wakes up to start the whole thing over again.

It's the best birthday week ever.

-//-

But finally it's time to go home. They say goodbye to Disney World one last time. They pack up their bags. They check out of the hotel and head back to the airport. Grace is a little sad to go, but she misses home and maybe it's time to go back.

Everyone is very happy to see them. Grace gives everyone their presents, and spends a whole afternoon showing Altair every single picture she took. Even the ones of her thumb. He pays very close attention, and asks questions, and Grace tells him absolutely everything.

Then she goes looking for Connor. He's all by himself in his room, so Grace knocks and holds up the bag with his present. "I brought you something from Disney World," she says. "Do you want to see it?"

For a second when he looks at her, he just looks tired. Then he manages to smile and nod. Grace comes into the room and smiles a little nervously. "I don't know if you'll like it," she says, handing over the bag. Connor reaches inside and pulls out the Mickey Mouse ears with the princess hat. He looks back at Grace, eyebrows raised.

"It's just like mine," Grace says. "I wanted us to match."

"Ah," Connor says.

"Will you please try it on?" Grace begs. "Please, Connor?"

He hesitates—then nods and sets the ears on top of his head. For a second he just looks ridiculous, but then he looks down at Grace and grins.  _ Laughs _ . Grace giggles too. "You look silly," she says.

"I  _ feel _ silly," Connor says. He's still smiling. "But thank you for thinking about me."

"I missed you," Grace says. She throws her arms around her big brother, hugging him so enthusiastically his hat almost falls off. "Maybe you can come with us next time?"

"I would like that," Connor admits. He smiles that silly smile Grace is so unused to seeing on his face, and touches his hat. "I already have the ears."

"You're ready," Grace says. "You're  _ perfect _ ."

He hugs her back. “Happy birthday, Grace.”


	141. Chapter 141

Evie's labor begins at the worst possible time. The brotherhood in India normally runs itself very well, but recently they've had a run of bad luck. Some young novices had been caught by templars and tortured for information—they'd given up names and locations before they were (mercifully) killed, and now there are templars here, in the heart of the brotherhood's most secure safe house.

And Evie is in labor, she's absolutely helpless and she has a child inside her that can't wait another moment to be born. Somewhere outside the room she can hear the sounds of fighting, swords and gunfire and the screams of the dying, but in here it is only her and Henry and the baby, and Evie is the only one screaming. Everything hurts but the pain is nothing compared to the terror that this baby will never get to live, that templars will cut their life short before they even get to draw their first breath.

Evie cries out as a fresh jolt of pain wracks her body, and Henry takes half a step toward her. "Evie—"

"No," she gasps. " _ No _ , Henry." She's aching to feel his hand in hers just now. "I need you to fight for me. For  _ us _ ."

Henry turns as the door bursts open, sword raised uncertainly. He's a strong fighter, Evie knows, one of the best, but he does not like to kill. Today, apparently, he will have to.

-//-

"I can't stand that woman," Desmond mutters. He casts a glance over his shoulder at the disapproving nurse on the other end of the room. She's doing a bad job of pretending not to eavesdrop on their conversation, and an even poorer job of hiding her disapproval of Desmond.

"You can't exactly blame her," Evie says. "You— _ ugh! _ " she grimaces as a fresh contraction squeezes at her insides. "You are a bit covered in blood."

"It's not like I killed anyone," Desmond complains. "I was only sparring with Elena." He grins, rubbing at the freshly bandaged cut that runs all along his forearm. "She's getting really good with the blade."

It's true—Elena's doing very well in her training. But Evie can't focus on Elena right now, all she can think about is the pain, and the child inside her fighting to be born. She has never been any good at giving birth. She prides herself on being in control of her own body, at being skilled at whatever physical undertaking she attempts. But she has always struggled with giving birth. Something seems to go wrong every time—her first daughter had arrived in the middle of a templar attack, the second had come dangerously early, and Evie is very afraid of what might go wrong this time.

The horrible nurse pushes her way past Desmond to get to Evie, and frowns her way through another examination. Then she frowns and hurries away to fetch a doctor. Evie reaches for Desmond, and he takes her hand at once. "Something's wrong," Evie says. "Something's wrong, there's something wrong with the baby—"

"No," Desmond says, but he sounds absolutely terrified. "No, Evie, it's alright—everything will be alright."

-//-

There are three dead men in the room now, their dying groans mingling with Evie's muffled cries as she struggles to give birth. She just wants this over, she wants the baby  _ out _ , she wants this to be  _ over. _

"Shh…" Henry whispers. He is at her side now, splattered with the blood of dead men and paler than she has ever seen him. "Stay quiet, Evie."

"I'm trying," Evie says. She knows they can't afford to be found again, that if more templars find this room, they might prove better fighters than the first three had been. But it's so hard to keep from crying out, it's nearly impossible to stay quiet. Delivering this baby is the hardest and most painful thing Evie has ever done, and she has done quite a lot of very painful things in her life. It shouldn't hurt this much, should it? It shouldn't hurt more than being stabbed, more than falling, more than a bad fight in the rings. But it does.

"Evie," Henry says, and his voice is suddenly excited. "Evie! I can see the head."

Some unknown emotion Evie has never felt before courses through her. She takes a breath and goes on pushing, and pushing—

-//-

Something is wrong with the baby. Or maybe something is wrong with Evie, she isn't sure which. Either way, the doctor insists she be moved to an operating room immediately. They're going to have to cut her open and pull the baby out.

Evie has never been any good at giving birth, but this is even worse than what she is used to. All she can do is lie flat on her back while things happen around her, to her. It's just an awful, unhappy blur, and all Evie can do is squeeze her eyes shut and pray it ends soon.

They hadn't even let Desmond in the room. So Evie waits, and waits—

-//-

A shrill cry splits the air, and something leaps inside Evie. That is her baby, her child, her flesh and blood, and in that moment there is nothing more important in the world than that infant. Henry hands her the baby, and his eyes are bright with tears or something else. "It's a girl," he says.

-//-

The child cries and Evie strains uselessly forward toward the sound. She is numb everywhere, and the doctor warns her sternly not to move. They need to close the incision and finish the operation, but she will be able to hold the baby soon enough. Only it is  _ not _ soon enough, not nearly soon enough. Evie needs to be seen to, and so does the baby, and the long and the short of it is that she isn't allowed to hold her child for what seems like forever. Eventually she is taken back to a hospital room to recover, and within five minutes Desmond comes hurrying in with their child carefully balanced in the crook of his arm. He stops at Evie's bedside, tears leaking freely down his face. Evie reaches for the baby and Desmond passes the child toward her. "It's a boy," he says.

-//-

The baby is absolutely perfect. There are no blankets, no clean cloth, nothing to wrap the child in. So Evie presses the girl close to her chest, firm and strong, and drinks in the sight of her tiny, perfect daughter.

-//-

The baby is absolutely perfect. He is swaddled in some thin, blue blanket the hospital had provided for him, and Evie hugs him gently to her. She has forgotten what it feels like to hold a child like this, to know that it is  _ hers _ but at the same time he is a tiny person of his very own, with a whole lifetime stretching out in front of him, and he is free to choose what that life holds. She is teary eyed herself as she looks down at her perfect son.

-//-

"Can I hold her?" Henry asks.

-//-

"I can't believe he's real," Desmond breathes.

-//-

Evie would not have passed her daughter off to anyone else in the world, but Henry is the child's father and so she passes the tiny bundle to him without protest. There's a smile on his face like Evie has never seen before, and he sits down next to her on the bed, ignoring the mess that childbirth has left behind. They lean on each other, supporting each other and their daughter as the sounds of fighting fade out around them.

-//-

"You act like you've never had a child before," Evie teases.

"Not this young," Desmond says. He's still whispering. "Not really. I met Elena when she was a toddler. Sage was a teenager. I can't believe…"

Evie cannot move, she's still suffering from the drugs they'd put in her during the surgery. But she pats the empty space on the bed next to her and Desmond sits at once, reaching his trembling hand out to stroke their son's curly hair. He has so much hair, more than either of Evie's daughters had when they were born. It makes Evie smile like she'll never, never stop.

-//-

The assassins win the day, in the end. Two of them come to fetch Evie and Henry and their daughter, and take them somewhere free of bodies. It should have been a sad, somber day, but the newborn gives them cause to be happy, at least a little. The whole brotherhood is brighter for her presence, that day.

In the evening, Jacob comes to visit. He looks at his niece like she's some kind of miracle, and he won't stop hugging Evie. He chatters on and on about what a miracle she is, and for once there is not so much as a hint of teasing in his voice.

"I'm from a few months in the future," he tells her at last. "I got your letter about the baby, so I knew about her. But it's different seeing her." He smiles down at the newborn. "You know, I told every contact I have about this baby. Every assassin in England sends their congratulations, by the way."

"Really?" Evie laughs. "Every one?"

"Oh yes," Jacob says. "And two from Spain that are just passing through." He frowns abruptly. "At least, I assume they'd send congratulations. I don't speak any Spanish and they don't speak any English, but we’re getting pretty good at charades."

" _ Jacob _ ," Evie says, fondly.

-//-

Technically there are limits on how many visitors Evie and the baby can have at one time, but almost everyone she knows and cares about in this century is either a templar or an assassin. Maybe half of them have to climb in through the window, but they all come to see her. All her visitors are there, and Clay, and Shaun, and Rebecca. And the kids, of course. Elena, Geraldine, and Grace. Sage is halfway across the country, away at college, but he'd called earlier to congratulate them, and Desmond's been sending him pictures all day. Evie searches the crowd until she finds Jacob—not that it's hard. He's the one vibrating with excitement.

"This is great," he tells her. "Really great."

"So you approve?" Evie teases.

Jacob hardly seems to notice. "Definitely," he says. "You're a great mother. That kid's really, really lucky."

"Thank y—"

"Hey, Arno!" Jacob calls abruptly. "Arno, Arno! We should have one."

"What, like adopt, or…?"

"No," Jacob says dismissively. "It's the future, I'm sure they've figured out a way for men to have babies by now."

"Nope," Desmond interrupts.

Jacob makes a grumbling noise of disappointment. "Never mind," he says. "We'll just have to be the cool uncles then. We him to do all the fun stuff Evie won't let him try."

" _ Jacob!" _ Evie scolds. "Don't you dare!"

-//-

They name her Abigail. Evie had suggested giving her an Indian name, something that will help their daughter fit into the place where she's been born. Evie misses London, she misses her home and her brother, but there is too much to do here. She does not think they will be able to leave for a while, and she is worried about marking their daughter out as different.

"But she  _ is  _ different," Henry says, surprised. "She's ours, so she's special. This way, everyone will know."

They'll know it anyway, Evie thinks. Abigail is asleep, and the room around them is quiet. Evie can hear her soft breathing, and it makes something in her chest swell up. They'll know anyway, because whatever their daughter does with her life, it will be something great.

"I love you," Evie says, taking Henry's hand. "I love both of you more than I can say."

"I know," Henry says, reaching to take her hand. "And I love you too."

-//-

They name him James.

"I always thought that if I had a son, I would name him James," Evie confesses to Desmond when they are alone. "It comes from the same root as Jacob."

"Sure," Desmond says. Evie is almost positive he'd agree to anything just now, he's so over the moon with happiness. She presses a little, just to make sure he won't regret agreeing later on.

"Really?" she says. "You really like it?"

"I really do," Desmond assures her. "It sort of fits, doesn't it? I mean—he almost looks like Jacob, a little. He has his nose, I think."

"Maybe," Evie agrees. Then she sighs. "Just as long as he doesn't have Jacob's talent for getting in trouble."

"I'd love him anyway," Desmond says at once. "I love him no matter what, I love him and I love you, and I just…" He trails off, unable to finish.

"I know," Evie says. "I know, Desmond. And I love you too."


	142. Chapter 142

It's not that Evie doesn't know that Desmond had fathered children by two other women. Of course she knows. She likes Elena quite a lot, and while Sage is not around as much, Evie is still fairly comfortable around him. And she's seen Desmond with both of them, and there's no doubt at all that he could be anything but a father to them.

But sometimes it is easy to  _ forget _ . Evie has been in the future for more than a year now, and she has never seen either Lucy or Rosemary. In Lucy’s case, she suspects this is on purpose. It's not like the Templar is never around—she comes by fairly frequently, either to speak with Haytham and Shay or to spend time with Elena. But somehow, these visits always seem to happen while Evie is away. She chooses not to push. Rosemary, on the other hand, is simply around very rarely.

Until one day, when the (in retrospect, inevitable) meeting happens, and both Lucy and Rosemary arrive at the house. On the same day. It's actually Evie that answers the door. She's holding James against one hip, half rocking him against her side as he fusses. There's a woman there she doesn't know, who smiles in surprise at seeing Evie.

"I swear," she says. "Every time I come to see Desmond, I meet another one of you. How many people live here?"

"Who are you?" Evie asks, shifting to one side to keep her body between James and this stranger. The woman doesn't look like a threat, but there's no way to really know until it's too late. "Why do you need to see Desmond?"

"I'm Rosemary," she says.

"Rosemary," Evie echoes. "Sage's mother."

"Yes, exactly," Rosemary says. "Can I come in?"

Evie steps back and Rosemary walks through the doorway. She smiles at James, and Evie is viciously pleased when he bursts into tears. "Excuse me," she says. "He's—I was about to put him down for his nap. I can go get Desmond for you."

"Thank you," Rosemary says, and she smiles entirely too sweetly at Evie as she hurries upstairs to find Desmond. He's with Connor, talking about—something. Evie isn't listening, really, she's still thinking about Rosemary.

"Hey," Desmond says. He smiles at her—beams at James. "What's up?"

"Rosemary's here."

Desmond's smile drops into something nervous. "Oh. Did you—are you okay?"

"Of course I am," Evie says. "I'm not some delicate flower."

"Well, no," Desmond says. "But things are…complicated, aren't they?"

Evie just looks at him. Of course things are complicated. And she's not  _ jealous  _ of Rosemary, of course not. That would be hypocritical and wrong of her after Desmond was so understanding of Henry. She knows he's still visiting her in the past, when she's married to another man. So really, Evie has no room to complain, it's just that she can't stop thinking about it.

"Maybe you should go downstairs," Connor says, giving Desmond a gentle push when the silence starts to get uncomfortable.

"Probably," Desmond agrees, and hurries away.

"I'm going to put James down," Evie says, and takes him up to the room she shares with Desmond. When James is older, of course they’ll have to find somewhere else for him to sleep. He won't want to share a room with his parents forever. But there's a severe shortage of bedrooms in most of their safe houses, and for now this is the easiest choice. And anyway, it's nice having him in the room with them.

James is still upset, and it takes longer than usual to quiet him. When he's finally asleep, Evie turns around to find Rosemary standing in the doorway with a small frown.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I didn't realize you're the wife."

Evie raises her eyebrows. "The wife?" she echoes, mood souring. She doesn't like being identified as  _ the wife _ , like it's all there is to her.

"Desmond's wife," Rosemary says.

"Yes," Evie says.

"Ah," Rosemary says. She looks down at James, sleeping in his crib. "That's a beautiful age," she says.

"Yes," Evie says again.

"Difficult, though." Rosemary's voice is a little bit higher than it had been before, like she's finding this conversation as difficult as Evie is. "Especially when you're going through it as a single parent."

Evie gives her a flat, unimpressed look, and leaves the room with Rosemary following uncomfortably behind her. They run into Elena on the stairs, and the girl stops, grinning. "Hi, Rosemary!" she says. "Is Sage coming to visit?"

"Soon," Rosemary says. "I just came by to talk to your dad about having Sage stay for part of the summer."

Elena grins wider and hugs her briefly, then goes charging past them.

"Where are you going in such a hurry?" Evie calls after her.

"Uh—" Elena stops on the landing. "My mom just came by to talk to grandpa, so I'm going to find him."

"Oh," Rosemary says, and—well, Evie still isn't the world's biggest fan of the woman. But at least they are equally unhappy about the fact that all three of the women Desmond has mothered children with are in the house right now.

"Wait," Elena says. "Evie, have you ever met my mom?"

"No," Evie says, and Elena beams.

"You should go meet her!" she says. "My mom's awesome, you'll like her a lot, I promise."

"Alright," Evie says weakly, and goes downstairs with Rosemary still trailing her. She sees Desmond first. He looks suitably miserable. Then she sees the other woman standing next to him. Lucy, apparently. Why does Evie only ever meet templars called Lucy? Why are they never assassins?

"Evie," Desmond says. "And, um—Rosemary."

Rosemary nods.

"This is Lucy."

"Hello," Lucy says. She frowns at Evie, who frowns right back. "So my daughter says she likes you quite a lot."

"She's a good kid," Evie says. She's looking at Lucy's eyes, and they're the exact same color as Elena's. She's never going to be able to forget that now.

"Oh, I know," Lucy says, just a shade defensively. "Just because I don't get to see her as often as you do, it doesn't mean I don't know  _ she's a good kid _ . She's a great kid."

"Of course she is," Rosemary says (butting in).

"What do you know?" Lucy demands. "You're here less than I am."

"Why shouldn't I be?" Rosemary asks. "I got to raise my son."

Lucy flinches and Desmond tries to interject, but all three of them glare at him. He goes quiet and bright red.

"That's a cruel thing to say," Lucy says. "I would have raised Elena if I  _ ever  _ had the chance. I did everything I could to help her but I  _ couldn't  _ be there."

"Because of your—" Evie glances at Rosemary, but she's not sure if Rosemary knows about assassins and templars. She's not quite upset enough to go spilling that secret. "Your job," she finishes.

"I made mistakes," Lucy says. "Yes. But none of that is any of your business."

Evie opens her mouth to say something less than kind about templars, but then Elena comes running downstairs, shouting that she's found her grandpa and he's on his way down, and the argument shrivels abruptly and dies. Evie does not like either of these women. Maybe, in other circumstances, things would have been different. But they all have their children to think of, and the one thing they all clearly have in common is the fierce desire to protect their children, even from each other. Maybe the threat is all imagined, maybe Evie knows in a rational way that Lucy and Rosemary are not going to take James away. And while she cares for Elena, and likes Sage, she would never dream of taking the place of their mothers.

…but none of that makes the thin thread of worry go away.

Lucy flashes a thin, false smile at the other two, then brushes past them to hug Elena.

"Love you, baby," Evie hears her whisper.

"I love you too," Elena says.

Rosemary makes some excuse and leaves a few minutes after that. Lucy goes upstairs with Haytham. And Evie sits down in the kitchen with Desmond, who looks extremely guilty. "I'm sorry," he says. "I didn't know either of them would be here today. It was just—bad luck."

"Very bad luck," Evie agrees.

"I really feel awful," Desmond says, and he looks it.

"Do you regret being with either of them?" Evie asks. "Would you go back and undo it?"

"Undo Elena?" Desmond says. "Undo Sage? No. Never. Just like I'd never go back and undo James. Look, Evie, I'm  _ sorry _ —"

Evie sighs, and smiles a little at him. He just looks so sad and sorry. It's hard to stay angry. "It's alright," she says. "They have a right to visit, because of the kids. And it's not like you cheated on any of us."

"Thank you," Desmond says.

Evie shrugs. "Just don't ask us to be best friends," she says. "Because that's not going to happen. They're always going to be a part of your life, because you're a good dad, and your children are always going to be around. But—"

"You don't have to be friends," Desmond says. "I get it. Maybe it's too much to ask. But you know…"

"What?" Evie asks, frowning at Desmond's hesitant expression.

"It's not exactly the same," Desmond says. "But I'm really glad you had Henry last time around. I like him, even if we never technically met. He's a good guy."

"And you're trying to say that Rosemary and Lucy are good people?" Evie asks. "And I should give them a chance?"

"Well—I wouldn't mind."

Evie half smiles. "I'll try," she says. "Because it's you asking, I'll try."


	143. Chapter 143

Jacob's been acting funny all day, and honestly it's put Arno a little on edge. They've just gotten back from an extremely long and difficult mission, and Arno had expected a lazy day in bed, just the two of them. It's been a while since they've had the time to do that, and Arno misses it. So last night, even though he'd been ready to drop from tiredness by the time they finally got back to the safehouse, Arno had taken the time to make preparations. He'd left a bunch of junk food within easy reach of the bed, pulled out some books, and found his favorite pair of pyjama pants. He has no intention of leaving bed tomorrow, no matter what, absolutely not. Maybe to use the bathroom. But not for  _ anything  _ else. It's going to be just him, and Jacob, and poptarts, and reading the cheesy bits of terrible romance novels out loud until they're both red faced with laughing.

But when Arno wakes up the next morning, Jacob is gone and the bed is cold. Arno frowns at the empty space where Jacob should have been—he's slightly worried that Jacob is making trouble somewhere, but more upset that he's gone. Arno gets out of bed (unhappily) and picks up his phone from where it's charging on the desk.

**Jacob Frye**

> Where are you?
> 
> I miss you.
> 
> Jacob?

He waits for several long minutes, then finally notices the little flashing light out of the corner of his eye—Jacob's phone, flashing a new message notification at him from under the bed. Of course he's forgotten it. Arno doesn't know why he's surprised.

Arno plugs in Jacob's phone (it's at 7% and Jacob will complain bitterly if it runs out of battery) and goes looking for his boyfriend. Instead he finds Evie. "Do you know where Jacob is?"

"No," she says. "Isn't he in bed still? It's only half past nine."

Arno shakes his head, and tries to push his worries away. He's sure Jacob is fine. He is very experienced at getting himself out of trouble, after all.

"Well, I'm sure he'll turn up," Evie says sympathetically.

"I'm sure," Arno echoes.

He spends his day listlessly wandering the safe house, trying to find something that will hold his attention for more than half an hour at a time. It's funny, the way everything just seems flat and lifeless now when he doesn't have Jacob around. There's this kind of…light that Jacob seems to cast on everything around him, that's the best way Arno can think of to describe him. He makes everything more interesting, doesn't matter how big or how small. Arno's come to depend on Jacob, and being without him now feels utterly lonely.

Every few minutes he'll glance down at his phone, then remember Jacob hadn't brought his with him and put it away again, feeling slightly stupid.

"Are you alright?" Connor asks, when he finds him lying on the couch, frowning at the ceiling like it's seriously offended him.

"I'm  _ fine _ ," Arno says, continuing to glare at the ceiling.

"Ah," Connor says. He sounds like he regrets asking the question. "Well. Alright then."

He withdraws quickly, and Arno can't stop thinking how Jacob would have whined and complained and pressed the issue until Arno told him what was bothering him. He stares at his stupid phone, which has no chance at all of delivering a message from Jacob because Jacob doesn't have his phone on him.

"Where are you, you idiot?" Arno mutters, and lets his phone drop onto his stomach.

But the whole day passes, and Arno hears nothing from his boyfriend. He's lonely and miserable and God he never used to be this clingy, did he? But it's not just Jacob, really, it's the way having Jacob around makes everything else better…

The doorbell rings, and for a long beat Arno doesn't recognize it for what it is—usually the only people they have over are Lucy and sometimes Sage, but both of them will usually text Desmond to let them in rather than ring the doorbell. And, well, there had been that time Edward ordered a pizza, but Altair had given him a very stern talking to about the concept of this being a _secret_ safe house. They don't get food delivered anymore.

"Arno!" Ezio calls from the ground floor. "It's for you!"

What? Who would possibly be coming to see him? Arno hasn't made any friends outside his visitors, and they all live here.

He hurries downstairs, and…

And…

"Jacob?"

Jacob beams so widely he looks like he's going to break his face in two—Arno looks at his huge smile, then at the suit—the honest to God suit and  _ tie _ he's wearing—then finally at the flowers Jacob's holding out for him.

"What's going on?" Arno asks.

Impossibly, Jacob's smile only gets wider. "I thought we could go on a date tonight," he says. "A proper one, with flowers and fancy food and whatever."

"Oh," Arno says. He takes the flowers Jacob is almost pushing at his chest, and feels his face getting warm. There's a little smile dancing around the corners of his mouth, nothing like as big as Jacob's, but how could Arno compete with that? "Really?"

"I've been getting it ready all day," Jacob says, bouncing a little where he stands. "So yea, we should  _ definitely _ go on a date, or it's all going to be a waste of time."

"You didn't cook, did you?"

"Of course not," Jacob says. "I'm not trying to make you break up with me."

"I… don't think I have anything to wear," Arno says, looking at Jacob's unusually nice clothes.

"That's okay," Jacob says, grabbing hold of Arno's hand. "I like you just how you are."

Which is how Arno ends up following an overdressed Jacob through town, barefoot (because Jacob hadn't even given him time for shoes) and holding a bunch of flowers tight in one hand. He feels like everyone they pass is looking right at them, and they probably are—the two of them look ridiculous. Somehow, Arno doesn't mind looking ridiculous when he's with Jacob.

Arno doesn't know the area well. They've only been in this town for a few weeks, and Arno hasn't had the time or the inclination to go exploring. Jacob, apparently, has. They end up in this little park, a stretch of open space next to a lake. It's half hidden behind a subdivision that's still under construction, and absolutely empty. Arno looks around, taking in the dim, golden twilight and the lingering warmth in the late spring air.

"This is where our date is?" Arno asks.

"Yea," Jacob says. "Unless—there's nothing wrong with it, is there?"

"No," Arno says. "It's just more… romantic than I expected from you." They've been on dates before, of course. Jacob has a particular fondness for carnivals—he'll drag Arno along whenever one's in town, then make sad, hopeful faces until Arno wins him a prize. He has a shelf filled with slightly disturbing stuffed animals in their room at home.

"I wanted to do this right," Jacob says.

"Do what?" Arno asks, and Jacob hesitates.

"Our date," Jacob says, unconvincingly. Then, when Arno narrows his eyes, he pulls Arno on. "Come on," he says. "I didn't make food, but I bought a bunch."

There's this tiny little gazebo next to the pond, and Jacob's spread a blanket on the floor and then filled it with both of their favorite foods. There's barely enough room for the two of them next to all the food, and by the time they manage to contort themselves in such a way that they fit, Jacob seems more at ease and Arno is laughing.

"Is this where you were all day?" Arno asks.

"Yea," Jacob says. "It took ages to find the right place. Why, did you miss me?"

"Of course I missed you," Arno says. "I tried to text you, but of course you didn't bring your phone."

"Whoops."

Arno throws a little packet of string cheese at him—neither of them actually  _ likes  _ string cheese, so Arno wonders for half a second why Jacob brought it. Then Jacob tears open the package and starts peeling the cheese into strands and hanging it on his nose, and Arno thinks oh, right, of course. That's why.

They're so close that it's easy to lean over and kiss Jacob. He smells of mozzarella but Arno is willing to overlook that for the moment. Then the cheese slips off Jacob's nose and he pulls back, laughing a little. They're so close that their foreheads touch, so close that Arno can feel Jacob's hair brushing against his face, and the little puff of Jacob's breath against his cheek when he speaks. "What was that for?" he asks. "It's usually me that kisses you."

"I love you," Arno says. "I'm really, really glad you did all this, but I also really, really missed you today."

"I’m here now," Jacob says.

"I know," Arno says. "I always know when you're with me, I can't  _ not  _ know. You just make the whole world better when you're around. I don't feel… complete when you're not around."

Jacob kisses him, then, and Arno just absolutely loses himself in the feel of it. He can't think straight, he can't think of anything but Jacob and doesn't want to. And then the next thing he knows he's on his back, with Jacob on top of him, blotting out his view of everything else so that in that moment Jacob is truly his whole world. Arno shudders against him, and Jacob reaches his hand down to—

"Jacob!" Arno hisses. "We're in a public park!"

"There's no one else here," Jacob says, breathless.

"Later," Arno says. "Later."

Jacob nods and moves his hand away, but he won't stop kissing Arno and Arno can't even pretend he wants him to.

When they finally finish, Jacob laughs and points at Arno's pants. "You rolled in ketchup," he says. "It's all over your trousers."

"What?" Arno stands up, half twisting around to get the best look he can at the back of his own pants—he can't actually see anything, and turns back toward Jacob. There's an exasperated smile on his face, he's already opening his mouth to ask Jacob if he's only said that so he could stare at Arno's ass, when he realizes that Jacob isn't sprawled out on the ground where he'd just been a second ago. He's half kneeling on only one knee, and he has one hand palm up in front of him.

And there's a ring on his open palm, and his face is tilted up to look at Arno. His face is open and vulnerable in a way Arno has never seen it before, and his hand shakes just a little.

"Jacob?" he says, smile fading just a fraction. "What is this?"

"I know I wasn't your first choice," Jacob says. "I know you always imagined a family with Elise, not with someone like me. I don't mind being your second choice. I'd follow you to the ends of the Earth even if you hated me, and these past two years being your boyfriend are more than I ever thought I'd have."

"Jacob—"

"And I understand if you want to say no," Jacob says, his words speeding up a little as Arno tries to interrupt. "I get that, it's okay. But I love you, Arno, I love you so much that sometimes I think I'll go mad from it. I can't imagine anything better than spending the rest of my life with you so I have to ask—" He's said all this in one breath, speeding up more and more until the words practically run together, but now he takes a deep breath, and speaks with what looks like a deliberate slowness.

"Arno Dorian," he says. "Will you marry me?"

Arno feels suddenly lightheaded. He sinks to his knees in front of Jacob without really meaning to, and stretches out his hands to hold both of Jacob's. In his left hand, Jacob's right, he can feel the thin metal circle of the ring cutting into his palm. Arno tries to speak, but his tongue suddenly won't obey him, and he trips over the words. He clears his throat, and looks at Jacob—the shining hope in his eyes is starting to fade, and the longer Arno goes without saying anything, the more his face seems to fall.

Arno can't stand to see Jacob look like that, crushed and hopeless, so he forces his tongue to obey. "You're not my second choice," he says. "I loved Elise, yes. She was important to me, she will always be important to me. But you're the one that's here now. You're the one lying next to me when I wake up in the morning, and the one holding me when I fall asleep at night. You're the only one I want to be with when I'm feeling lonely or worried or sad. You make me feel like I'm seeing the world in black and white when you're not around."

He shifts his left hand where it rests in Jacob's, twisting his finger into the ring without taking his eyes off Jacob's face. There are silent tears running down his cheeks in two thin trails, and he stares at Arno like he can't quite believe what he's hearing. "I do love you," Arno says. "And I wouldn't be with you if you were my second choice. I love you, and I've chosen you, and yes Jacob Frye,  _ I will marry you _ ."

Jacob shudders and leans forward to throw his arms around Arno. And Arno hugs him back, hard and tight, because he never wants to let go.

But finally, as the sun sinks down behind the horizon and the air grows chill around them, Jacob stands up and helps Arno to his feet. "Come on," he says. His voice is just a little hoarse from the tears he's shed, but his face is stuck in a smile. "Let's go home."

"Shouldn't we clean up?" Arno asks, gesturing halfheartedly to the mess they've made of the gazebo.

"You just agreed to marry me," Jacob says, in a mock scandalized voice. "I'm not going to make you clean up after us now, you might remember how much work I am and change your mind."

Arno laughs and shakes his head. "I won't," he says.

"I know," Jacob says. "That's one of the seven million things I like best about you, Arno. When you love someone, you love them with everything you have." Arno's face turns slightly pink—he can feel the blush warming his cheeks. Jacob gestures to the mostly eaten meal. "Nah. Evie said she wanted to help, and I wouldn't let her do any of the planning because I wanted to do it all myself. But she's going to come clean up for us."

"Evie knew you were going to ask?" Arno asks. They start walking, side by side, close as they can get. Jacob's fingers keep straying to where the ring rests on Arno's finger, and Arno can't blame him for it. He keeps squeezing his fingers together around the unfamiliar metal, trying to wrap his head around the fact that it's actually there. It's real. This is happening.

"Of course she did," Jacob says. "She's Evie."

Arno shakes his head. "I love that you can't keep anything a secret from your sister," he says.

"Well, I love that you're okay with me telling her before I told you," Jacob says with a funny little laugh.

Arno's stomach flips as what's happened here this evening hits him all over again. "I love that you just asked me to marry you."

"I love that you said yes."

"I love that you planned all this out."

Jacob gives him his best shit eating grin. "I love the way you look with ketchup all over your butt."

"You're making that up."

"I am not! See, right...  _ there _ ."

"Jacob! We're in the middle of the street, you can't just start touching my—"

But Jacob pulls him close, one hand still on Arno's ass, the other tangled up in his hair. And they kiss, again, long and deep. Arno tries, he really does, but he can't make himself care that they're in the middle of a street, standing in a puddle of warm light shining down from a streetlight overhead. It's like they're standing in a spotlight, and something in Arno thinks  _ good _ , because he doesn't care who sees, he wants the whole world to know that he's in love with this stupid, reckless, crazy man.

And he's going to marry him.


	144. Chapter 144

Sometimes, the safehouses the visitors find themselves in are terrible places. Just because a house is safe doesn't mean it's comfortable, or large enough for the lot of them. This one, for example, has them all crammed together in a single room no better than a warehouse. They're looking for something better, but for now Abstergo is worryingly close to finding them, and for the moment this is the best they can do.  
  
It is safe, and that's something. Abstergo can pick over the place they'd left behind as much as they want—they'll never find even a hint of where the visitors have gone. And soon they'll be moving on again, somewhere… bigger. With more than one room, hopefully.  
  
At just past one in the morning, Haytham wakes up, sore and stiff. There are supplies here, of course, including enough assorted sleeping bags and ancient mattresses to keep them all off the hard, concrete floor. But Haytham is sharing a mattress with Shay and Aveline, and he honestly suspects that said mattress has been around longer than they have. Which is really saying something, in this case.  
  
It had been uncomfortable when they had all lain down together, but now it's truly, absolutely unbearable. Haytham gets up, half hoping a stretch and a walk around the room will help and half knowing it's a lost cause.  
  
The three of them are nearest the building's only door, so Haytham heads farther inward. The next person he passes is Altair, who is lying on a pile of blankets with his weapons set neatly in front of him, ready for use. He looks asleep at first glance, but his eyes slide open as Haytham walks past—for a moment they are narrowed in tense suspicion, before he acknowledges Haytham with a small nod and lets his eyes fall shut again.  
  
Connor is nearby with his back pressed up against a wall. His forehead creases in his sleep, face shadowed by a frown even now, and Haytham lingers over him for a moment before moving on, to the mattress where Ezio and Edward have sprawled out on opposite ends. Haytham had been worried when he saw them pairing off—the two of them have been sharing a bed more and more often lately, and this is neither the time nor the place for that—but they're both fully dressed and fast asleep. Ezio is snoring softly. Edward is snoring loudly.  
  
A little way beyond the two of them is Adewale. He's still fairly new to this century, new enough that he feels most comfortable sticking with Edward. Haytham had seen him worrying over exactly where to spread out his sleeping bag, earlier in the evening. He'd claimed to be aiming for somewhere close enough to Edward to feel comfortable, but not so close to Ezio that he'll be invited to join them. Haytham is not entirely sure he'd chosen a place far enough away.  
  
A little way beyond the two of them are the girls, surrounded on both sides by enough assassins and templars to keep them safe just in case they actually are followed. They'd set up their sleeping bags in a circle around a storm lantern as if it were a fire pit, and pretended to be camping. They'd stayed up whispering and giggling and making up ghost stories until late. Haytham's gaze drifts down to Elena, and thinks that he might once have considered her too old for games like this. She's sixteen now, and sleeps with a hidden blade within easy reach. But maybe there's nothing wrong with being a child, from time to time. Sixteen isn't so very old, certainly not as old or mature as Elena thinks it is. Haytham isn't quite ready to think of his granddaughter as an adult yet. He smiles when he spots her little stuffed lion, cradled securely in the crook of her arm.  
  
Next to her is Geraldine, face turned slightly toward the lantern's dim light. She looks more and more like her mother every day, Haytham thinks fondly. And just as loyal, just as fierce in her beliefs. He leans down to shut the lantern off, and hears Grace mumble something in her sleep from Geraldine's other side. He reaches over and rubs soothing circles across her back until she goes quiet and still again. Then he stands, and presses onward.  
  
Clay is next, flat on his back, one arm stretched out to brush against his gun (they're all a little paranoid tonight, it seems). The other is flung across his face, blocking out the feeble light leaking in through the room's high windows. He snorts in his sleep as Haytham steps over him (it's far more crowded on this side of the room). He skirts around Shaun and Rebecca. There's a healthy distance between the two of them on their mattress, and Haytham almost misses the way Shaun has one hand stretched out across the empty space to grip Rebecca's, tight.  
  
Arno and Jacob are awake when Haytham sidles past, but neither of them notices him. Jacob is sprawled out on his side of the mattress, and Arno is curled up next to him, facing him, their foreheads nearly touching. Haytham passes close enough to hear the low whisper of their conversation, but hurries on before he can make out what they're saying. Whatever they're talking about, it seems private. Certainly none of his business.  
  
Finally, at the far end of the warehouse, Haytham finds Desmond and Evie lying together, James curled up between his parents with his thumb in his mouth. He'd cried all evening, scared and confused by the sudden move. He's three, old enough to have seen them move more than once, but they'd been at their last safehouse more than a year. Haytham suspects that this is the first move that he'd been old enough to really understand that something's wrong.  
  
He doesn't look upset now, though. If anything, he looks calm. They all do, Desmond and Evie as well. Peaceful. James is still small enough to fit snugly in Evie's arms, and she looks considerably less deadly with her son asleep against her chest. Desmond is curled against them on James’s other side, with his good arm around the two of them. Haytham lingers here longer than he had with anyone else. The still darkness of the almost cavernous room, the gentle in and out sound of nineteen people breathing and snoring and whispering, something about it makes him feel very serious and glad. Even in the circumstances, driven out of their house, Haytham feels blessed just to be here—the building they'd lost had been their house for many months now, yes, but it's the people here that make it home. And now they're here, so here is home.  
  
They'll find somewhere better to live. Their luck will turn around sometime soon—it always seems to, in the end.  
  
Haytham laughs, quietly—he'd never have even dared think something like that, back in his first life. This time, these people, they've changed him. And—Haytham looks back down at Desmond, safely asleep with his wife and son, a faint smile curling across his face even in sleep, his daughter only a few yards away. It's almost impossible to look at him now and think of him in the animus, miserable and helpless and struggling to hold onto his sanity. Sometimes, Haytham wishes he could still visit Desmond in that time. Just to hold him tight, and promise him with utmost certainty that he has this kind of joy waiting in his future.  
  
"I love you, Desmond," Haytham tells his sleeping son. And he pads back through the crowd of sleeping bodies until he gets back to Shay and Aveline. He slides back into his accustomed place, his back giving a little twinge of pain (he curses the mattress with a fervor his father would have been proud of). But then Shay is stirring, wrapping his arm around Haytham's waist, and Aveline is reaching over to twine her fingers through Haytham's, and all he can think is how lucky he is.


	145. Chapter 145

"Daddy—" Edgar is curled up on the couch near the fireplace, tiny and so, so tired as he tugs on Jacob's sleeve. "Daddy, I don't want to go to bed…"

Arno looks from Edgar to Jacob, who looks just as exhausted as Edgar does. He puts his hand on Jacob's shoulder. "I can do this," he says. "If you want to lie down for a while."

Jacob nods and sags sideways against Arno without argument. "Thanks," he mumbles. "I'm so tired, Arno, I don't know if I can do this…"

"Shh," Arno says, squeezing his shoulder briefly. He's much older than Jacob is at the moment, so while he knows that Jacob  _ can  _ and  _ will  _ learn to be a good father, he's not sure Jacob is ready to hear it. Or believe it, anyway.

"I'm tired," Jacob whines, and Arno lets himself slip sideways into him. Then he gently steers Jacob onto the couch next to Edgar, where Jacob curls up against the back and visibly fights to keep his eyes open. Then Arno turns his attention to Edgar.

"Come on," he says, lifting the squirming boy into his arms.

"No, daddy," Edgar protests. "Not tired!"

He's so small, Arno thinks, hugging Edgar close. Over the years, he and Jacob had more or less accidentally worked out how to father Edgar together, but that hadn't been until Edgar was older. Arno very rarely gets to interact with Edgar when he's young like this—two years old, at a guess.

"You  _ look _ tired," Arno says.

Edgar sticks out his bottom lip. "No."

"Well how about we just get you ready for bed?" Arno says. "And then we'll see how you feel."

"No," Edgar says again, but he doesn't argue as Arno carries him into his little room, changes him, and finally dresses him in nightclothes. It's just close enough to where Jacob is still curled up on the couch to let Arno move freely, but  _ only  _ just. The little tug Arno feels every time he tries to step too far away from Jacob should be annoying, but somehow it feels right. He likes the reminder that Jacob is around, and part of this little family, even when he's not actually in sight.

Edgar cries the first time Arno tries putting him to bed. He crawls right out again and clings to Arno's legs. "Don't want to go to bed," he says. "Daddy, no!"

Arno hates seeing Edgar cry—he really, really hates it. So instead of putting Edgar back into bed (like he should do), he sits down and lets Edgar crawl onto his lap instead. Edgar makes unhappy little noises like a mewling cat, but then Arno curls himself around him—and the sad noises stop.

"I hate bedtime," Edgar whimpers.

"Don't say you hate things."

"I  _ hate  _ it," Edgar insists, with absolutely typical Frye stubbornness. "Daddy…"

"What's so bad about it?" Arno asks, just to have something to say. He's rocking gently back and forth, rubbing gentle circles into Edgar's back until the boy's eyes start to droop and he yawns widely.

"Sometimes you go away at bedtime," Edgar says. "I don't like when your friends are here in the morning. Can you stay home tonight?"

"I don't know," Arno says. But he's going to talk to Jacob about it as soon as he can.

"Don't go," Edgar mumbles. Then he mumbles something that's mostly just nonsense, and Arno lifts him into bed. This time, Edgar doesn't protest as Arno pulls his blanket up over him.

Eventually, Jacob comes in and stands next to Arno. "I'm going out in a minute," he says.

"Why?" Arno asks. Since he's still wearing Jacob's body, he keeps his voice low to avoid waking Edgar.

Jacob shrugs. "Meeting some Rooks. I've been hearing rumors of some templars that recently came into the city. Might try to track them down."

"Do you go out every night?"

"Two or three times a week," Jacob says. Maybe he notices the way Arno is watching Edgar, because his next words are defensive. "I can't really go out during the day—I can get some of the Rooks to watch Edgar while he's sleeping, usually, but he's such a little brat during the day that none of them will watch him. And I have to work sometime, don't I?"

Well—alright, yes. But Arno is  _ sure  _ that there has to be some better way of doing it. Some way that doesn't leave Edgar feeling so pitifully unwanted.

"Edgar told me he'd really like to have you around in the morning," Arno says. "I think he misses you when you're not here."

"Yea, right," Jacob says glumly. "He doesn't care about me. There's  _ someone  _ here for him all the time. He's not going to fall out a window or whatever. That's all that matters."

It's not. "Take the night off," Arno says.

"But—"

Arno looks sideways at him. That's his baby as much as Jacob's,  _ his baby _ crying himself to sleep and waking up lonely. "Take the night off," he says again. "Get some sleep, whatever—just be here for Edgar."

"Fine," Jacob mutters. He crosses his arms and kicks at the floor a little. "He doesn't like me anyway. I'm a shit dad."

"Jacob—"

"I didn't ask for him," Jacob says. "I've been talking to Evie about it. She says—she says if I can't handle him, she'll take him. And I don't think I can do this."

"Jacob!"

"He's two!" Jacob says. "And it feels like I've been doing this for a hundred years already. I'm exhausted, I'm just…I can't imagine doing this for the rest of my life."

Arno knows Jacob won't give Edgar away. He's seen Edgar's future, he's been a part of it. But even that knowledge isn't quite enough to stop the sudden fear in his chest, and his next words burst out of him before he can think them through.

"Don't you  _ dare  _ give that boy away," he snaps. "Don't you dare, Jacob, or I will never forgive you."

Jacob looks stricken. "Do you really care about him that much?"

Arno nods. Then sighs, because he can see by the disbelieving expression on Jacob's face that he doesn't get it. This is too early for Jacob to understand how Arno had come to see Edgar as a son. "I just… I would have done anything to have had more time with my dad," he says. Which is true, at least. "I guess I just feel for him."

"Well—" Jacob looks doubtfully at Edgar, who is now drooling a little onto his own arm. Arno beams (he can't help it, he really can't). "I guess, since it's you asking… I can try and stick it out a little bit longer."

Arno squeezes Jacob's arm. "Thank you." 


	146. Chapter 146

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think... this might be the nerdiest visitorverse chapter so far. Counting the pokemon AU, even.

Normally, the places they use as safehouses are already converted by other members of the brotherhood from ordinary buildings into assassin ready places. But sometimes they have to find places at the last minute, when there's no established safehouse around—like this time. Their current (soon to be safe)house had once been someone's home, then converted into a shoe repair place (Matthew had been disgusted when he found out—he still hasn't forgiven his mother for sending him away to apprentice with her brother the shoemaker). Then the shop had gone bankrupt and spent the next several years sitting empty, until just recently when it had been claimed by this visitors.

Now it's their safehouse, which is great except that the previous owners hadn't cleaned up very well on their way out, and now there's a ton of cleaning to be done. Still, it could be worse. Elena is in the attic with Clay, cleaning out boxes of stuff from when this used to be a house. She's not downstairs with everyone else, throwing out boxes of old shoe polish. There's some interesting stuff up here, and Elena kind of likes piecing together bits of someone else's life.

"Oh, hey!" Clay says, pulling his head out from the box he'd been looking through. "Elena, look at this!"

"Books?" Elena asks, peering across the cluttered attic at him.

"Dungeons and Dragons rulebooks," Clay says. "I haven't played this game in _ages_."

"Hmm," Elena says, noncommittally. She doesn't want to come right out and insult the game when Clay seems so enthusiastic, but Dungeons and Dragons is sort of a nerd game, isn't it?

"I was so obsessed with this game back in high school," Clay says. "But I haven't even…" his eyes brighten. "Elena! You should let me run a game for you this weekend!"

"Uh…"

"We'd need more players, of course," Clay says. "But I think Geraldine and Grace would be willing to play. And Sage said he was coming to spend the weekend, right? I think he'd love this."

"Maybe?" Elena says.

"That'll be great," Clay says. " _Great!_ You will play, Elena, won't you?"

…He just looks so _excited_.

"Sure," Elena says. "I would love to."

"Great!" And Clay spends the rest of the afternoon enthusiastically describing all the things he loves about the game as they sort through the rest of the boxes. By the time Ezio shouts upstairs that he has dinner ready, Clay's almost convinced Elena to be excited too.

-//-

Saturday afternoon finds Elena, Geraldine, and Grace clustered around one side of the kitchen table, with Clay on the other side, half hidden behind a stack of books.

Geraldine eyes them skeptically. "So those are all the rules you have to learn?" she asks.

"Sort of," Clay says. "But you don't have to worry about learning them all at once. I'm the DM—"

"What?" Grace asks.

"Dungeon Master," Clay says. "It basically just means I'm in charge of the game. I have to keep the story going and make sure everyone follows the rules, so I'll explain what you have to do as we go along."

"What's the point of this game, even?" Grace asks.

"Think of it like we're all telling a story together," Clay says. "All of you make a character, and then you roleplay your characters going on an adventure."

"Okay," Grace says. "Sounds sort of fun—how do we start?"

"Just pick a race and a class," Clay says. "And I'll tell you what to do after that."

-//-

Character creation turns out to be a little more difficult than Clay had made it sound, but they figure it out. There's lots of flipping through the rule books and looking up stats and—well, Marcello shows up for a visit pretty early and of course he's _instantly_ enthralled by something with this many books involved, and picks up on the system pretty quickly. That helps. Elena makes her character first—she settles on a half-elven monk—and then Geraldine makes an elven wizard, and then Sage shows up, half an hour late.

"Traffic was bad," he grumbles, but then brightens up immediately when he sees the mess of books and paper spread out around the table. "What edition are we playing?"

"Five," Clay says. "Have you played before?"

"Yea," Sage says. "Mostly fourth edition, but I can probably figure this out."

"Fourth edition," Clay repeats. He shoots Sage a look of serious disappointment. "I thought we were friends."

They bicker about editions for a while after that—Clay insists 3.5 is the best, Sage refuses to give ground on fourth, and none of the rest of them has any idea what the difference is. Finally, their confused expressions seem to get through to Clay and Sage, because they stop arguing grapple rules to make Sage's character.

"I'll be a fighter," he says. "Nothing fancy."

"Nothing wrong with that," Clay says. "What about your race?"

Sage grins. "I was thinking gnome."

Clay looks up from the sheet of paper he's been writing on and gives Clay a flat look of exasperation. "You're going to be one of _those_ players, aren't you?" he asks.

Sage only grins.

"Is it my turn yet?" Grace whines. "I want a character too!"

"Yea," Clay says. "Of course." He flips through the handbook, then stops at a page labelled _cleric_. "You guys don't have a healer yet."

"What's a cleric?"

"It's like a fantasy priest, kind of," Sage says. "Your character is like a priest of one of the deities, and in return you get spells and things."

"I don't want to be that," Grace says at once. She reaches across the table and grabs the book away from Clay—she only looks through a couple more pages before grinning and pointing at something Elena can't quite see. "What do these guys do?"

Clay leans over. "Bards?"

"Yea!"

"They sing," Clay says. "Or play a musical instrument. And then you guys get better at fighting and the monsters get worse."

"I'm going to be a bard," Grace says.

"But then we _still_ don't have a healer—"

Clay doesn’t' finish the sentence, because Grace is giving him her absolute best 'look how sad and pathetic I am' expression. "Right," he mutters. "You can be a bard if you want to."

They finish putting Grace's character together, and they're finally about to start the actual game when James comes running in and starts begging to play.

"I think you're a little too young to play," Clay says, shooing James away from the table as kindly as possible.

"I'm four," James insists. "That's not little."

"Maybe when you can read and do a little math," Clay says. "But—"

"He can be the healer that Grace didn't want to be!" Geraldine interrupts.

"I can do that!" James says.

"Do you know what a healer does?" Clay asks.

James shakes his head.

"They make people feel better when they get hurt," Sage says, leaning over to lift his brother up onto his lap. He looks back up at Clay. "Come on," he says. "We'll help him with the math and things. It'll be fine."

Clay looks like he's going to argue, but maybe the hopeful expression on James's face convinces him not to. "Alright," he says. "You can play, James."

Only of course now they have to make James a character as well, and that takes twice as long as anyone else's because James interrupts with questions at every step. Marcello starts not so subtly hinting that he wants a character too, and Elena has to remind him that no one else can see him. He sulks until Elena agrees to let him share her character. The two of them start paying attention to James again, who seems way more interested than Elena had expected. He's listening just as carefully as anyone else when Clay finally gets to start the story.

 "You're all adventurers that have found your way to a tiny town on the edge of the kingdom," he says. "There are rumors that something strange has been going on here, but none of the stories agree what that something is, and you've come to find out."

"I start looking around for the town guard," Sage says at once. "Maybe some of them know what's going on."

"Wait," Elena says. "Sorry, but—that's all we have to do, just narrate what our characters are doing?"

"There's dice rolling later," Clay says. "Mostly during combat, like you roll to see if that number is higher than the monster's defense number, stuff like that."

Elena shrugs. "I'm pretty sure I can handle a little dice rolling."

"So what do you do when you get to town?" Clay asks.

Elena hesitates—too long, as it turns out.

"I'm going to put bandaids on everyone!" James announces.

"What?" Clay demands. "Why?"

"I _want_ to," James says. "And I'm the cleric so I have to make people feel better."

"Hey," Geraldine says, leaning forward in sudden interest. "You said we heard about something weird going on, right? Is a four year old cleric giving everyone bandaids considered weird in this world?"

"Well—it's pretty unusual…"

"I'm going to chase him down," Geraldine says. "To find out if hes the weird thing we're here to find."

"I'm going to run away," James declares.

And that's how they (or their characters, anyway) come to spend the next two hours chasing James around the little town, out of town, into a nest of monsters, and finally back into town (where Geraldine asks if he wants to join their group of adventurers and he agrees immediately). When Evie finally comes looking for James to put him to bed, Elena doubts they've managed to even start whatever story Clay had been planning to tell them, thanks to Jame'ss stubborn insistence on getting them side tracked, but…

Well, there's something ridiculous and fun about the whole thing. When James finally leaves with Evie, he makes the rest of them promise not to play any more without him. And Elena is surprised by her own reaction, by how disappointed that they won't get to play any more.

"That was fun," Grace says cheerfully, as they start cleaning up. "Can we do it again some other day?"

"As long as everyone else wants to," Clay says.

Sage shrugs. "If I'm in town, I'd love to."

"I want to play too," Geraldine says. "That was fun!"

"Elena?" Clay says, turning back to her. "How about you, would you want to play again sometime?"

She thinks about saying no. After all, it is still just a giant nerd game. But it's _fun_. "Sure," Elena says, and tries not to sound too excited. "Can't wait."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Sigh* Sorry for how off topic this chapter is. I am _so_ D &D deprived right now. I haven't played in months so apparently I have to write about it instead.


	147. Chapter 147

Edgar knows that his dad has visitors other than Arno, of course. Aunt Evie's one, and an apparently grumpy pirate, and then a bunch of people that used to live in the past, but now live in the future. Edgar keeps meaning to ask his Aunt about them (because Lord knows his dad isn't capable of giving him a straight answer, and Arno isn't around enough for lengthy conversations, unfortunately). He keeps forgetting, though, so most of what he knows of his dad's other visitors is pretty vague.

Which is why he's so surprised when his dad says one of his visitors wants to talk to him, and it's not Arno or Aunt Evie. The two of them rarely see each other these days—Edgar is busy with his duties as an assassin and his recent marriage—and so he makes an effort, every week or so, to come round for lunch, just the two of them, as long as none of his dad's visitors comes by to interrupt.

"Why does someone want to talk to me?" Edgar asks.

"I don't know," his dad says. "She says she'll only tell you."

"Okay," Edgar says. "I'll bite." He waits a second or two until he's pretty sure his dad isn't his dad anymore. It's not quite as easy to tell as when Arno's borrowing his dad's body, because Edgar is used to the way Arno stands and moves inside it. This other visitor, whoever she is, doesn't quite do the same things. But it's in her eyes, the way she looks at Edgar. Like a stranger.

"Hey," Edgar says. He feels like an idiot for introducing himself for someone standing in his dad's body, but he sticks his hand out anyway. "I'm Edgar. It's, um, nice to meet you?"

"I'm Aveline," she says, in his dad's voice, but with a smile that's not quite cocky enough to be his. They shake hands briefly, then Edgar drops his arms to his side and fidgets a little.

"So," he says. "Dad told me there's something you wanted to say to me."

"Yes," she says. She half turns to something (someone) Edgar can't see. "Jacob, stop listening."

"Well now he's definitely going to listen in," Edgar mutters.

" _ Jacob _ ," Aveline says, tone rising a bit in warning. Edgar wonders if she's a mum. She sounds like one, like she's telling off a small child. After a second, she scowls and turns back to Edgar. "Arno told me once he'd been helping you with your French," she says. "Have you gotten there yet?"

"Yea," Edgar says. "I mean, I'm not really fluent, or anything—"

"Good enough," Aveline says, switching languages. "I know for a fact that your father doesn't know a word of French."

"He knows the word for penis," Edgar says.

"Well we're not going to be talking about that," Aveline says firmly. "So I think we should be safe."

She looks so serious that Edgar starts to feel vaguely worried. "Is something wrong?" he asks.

"No!" Aveline says. "No, not at all. I actually have something I wanted to tell you. Some good news."

"Oh," Edgar says. "So, um… why isn't dad allowed to know?"

"Because it concerns his future," she says. "You know that visitors, when we die, we go to the future?"

"Yea," Edgar says. "Dad told me."

"Well, that's what's going to happen to your dad and Arno when they die."

Edgar nods, suddenly frowning. He doesn't like thinking about either of them dying, even if they are apparently going to come back. And even if technically Arno's been dead for ages already. "I thought you said this was good news," he says.

 

"It is," Aveline says. "It is, I promise. In the year I'm visiting from, they've just decided to get married."

Edgar hesitates. "I'm sorry," he says. "I don't think I understood that last word. My French must not be as good as I thought."

"Married," she says again, although that can't be what she's  _ actually  _ saying because—well unless one of them gets reincarnated as a woman that’s just not very likely, is it? And also Edgar knows (because his dad has explained it to him—he doesn't talk much about his other visitors, but he's told Edgar everything there is to know about Arno) that Arno is still in love with this girl he'd known when he was younger. Apparently, the situation is more or less hopeless.

"What?"

Aveline reaches for Edgar's hand, and taps his wedding ring. Edgar's eyes go wide.

"Wait," he says. " _ Really _ ?"

She smiles, and nods, and Edgar finds himself grinning as well. He's sure there's a story there somewhere, but right now he's just excited at the idea that it's possible—no, not just possible,  _ it's going to happen _ .

"That's amazing," Edgar says. "That's— _ ohh,  _ that's great. Absolutely fantastic."

"See?" Aveline says. "I told you it was good news."

"Thank you so much for telling me," Edgar says. "Really, I honestly appreciate it."

She laughs. "Well," she says. "Your father's whining at me to give him his body back, so I suppose I might as well."

Edgar nods. He knows the second she lets his dad is back in his body because he's mid-whine when it happens, complaining bitterly about not being allowed to know what's going on. When he finally realizes he's back in his body, he spins around and frowns at Edgar. "What did she tell you?" he demands.

"Can't tell you," Edgar says.

"Can't tell me?" his dad repeats. "Can't—what?  _ What _ ?"

"You'll find out eventually," Edgar says.

His dad sputters indignantly. "Edgar!"

Edgar hugs him. "I love you, dad."

"Well that's nice, but what did she—" He sort of awkwardly elbows himself in the side, which Edgar assumes is Aveline elbowing him. Either way, his dad sighs and hugs him back. "Fine," he says. "I love you, too." And then of course, he whispers, "But what did she  _ say _ ?" in Edgar's ear.

Edgar just smiles and smiles. 


	148. Chapter 148

Ezio has been aware for some time that Altair has been having secret meetings with someone. No matter where they go, what safe house they run to, Altair will sneak off once a week or so to meet… someone. It has never really bothered Ezio, because of course why would Altair be doing anything to hurt them? He wouldn't, the thought is absolutely unthinkable.

Had been.  _ Had  _ been absolutely unthinkable.

In the sparse few moments Ezio has spared in trying to figure out who Altair keeps going to meet, he's come to the conclusion that it must be a woman. Or a series of women, perhaps? Altair has never struck him as the kind of person that would have a string of lovers, but then their time in the future has changed all of them, and it does almost seem more likely, given how often they move.

So Ezio decides that clearly Altair has found himself some women to enjoy himself with, and apart from the occasional  _ good for him  _ when he sees Altair creeping away, he thinks no more about it. Not until today, anyway, and that's only because—well, Ezio hadn't exactly intended to shadow Altair when he left the safe house. Nothing so nefarious. It had just kind of… happened. Accident, at first, because they'd both left the safe house at almost the exact same time. Then curiosity, because he's never even tried following Altair before.

And then… then he'd found out who exactly it is that Altair has been going to see for all these years. Because by this point, it has been years—they've been in the future for nearly a decade by now, and for all this time—

"You've been meeting William Miles."

Ezio corners Altair when the other assassin is halfway home from his assignation.

Altair looks around at him, eyebrows raised. "I didn't see you there," he says, and on any other occasion Ezio would have been pleased at the note of approval in Altair's voice. Today, he is angry.

"How long have you been meeting with him?" he demands. "All this time?"

He doesn't even bother trying to deny it. "It's necessary," he says instead. "So about a month after he left us, I got back in contact with him. We've been sharing information ever since. Mostly by phone. In person, when we can manage it."

"But… Altair, we hate the man."

"Trust me," Altair says grimly. "I don't feel any particular fondness for him."

"Then  _ why _ ?"

Altair is quiet for a moment. When he speaks at last, he says, "Because of Elena."

"You mean because she's his granddaughter?" Ezio asks. "Because… honestly, I think she's better off without that particular part of her family."

"No," Altair says. "I completely agree with you that she's better off without him. But think of this. When William first left—"

" _ William _ ," Ezio mutters, disdainfully. He hates knowing Altair is on first name terms with that man.

Altair ignores him. "When he left, Elena was two years old. She was many years away from deciding if she wanted to be an assassin, or a templar, or if she'd leave the fight behind entirely. But given the people around her, I thought it more than likely she would choose to become an assassin."

"I don't understand," Ezio says. And he wants to, he really does, because he does not want to believe that Altair has been doing something to hurt them. "What does that have to do with making friends with William Miles?"

"We won't be around forever," Altair says. "We were given the gift of a second life, but we are not immortal. One day, we will die."

"…Yes," Ezio agrees, a little uncomfortably.

"What happens when we go?" Altair asks. "One assassin, alone, with no one to trust and nothing to fall back on? You know how difficult that is."

Ezio nods. Perhaps he had never been exactly  _ alone  _ in his first life, but there had certainly been times when he felt like he was.

"And if something happened?" Altair presses on. "If we die while she is still young, still in training? That would be even worse." He shakes his head. "No. I need to make sure that she has somewhere to go if the worst should happen. And now there is Geraldine and Grace to think of as well. They need something to fall back on."

"Even if that something is William Miles?" Ezio asks. But he is half convinced already.

"William Miles will not be mentor forever," Altair says. "But the Brotherhood will live on. That is what I want to make sure they have some connection to. So I keep in touch with William. I give him information, and he has promised there will always be a safe place for the girls, if it's needed."

"Do they know?" Ezio asks. "A safe place isn't much good if the people it's meant to protect don't know it exists."

"Elena knows as much as you do," Altair says. "She's not happy about running to William if something happens, but she understands that it might be necessary one day. Geraldine knows where to go and what to do, but…" he almost smiles. "She's young. She's not overly concerned with the details of who William is or what he's done in the past. Grace…" he sighs. "I'll tell her when she's a year or two older. I'm not sure she's old enough to understand yet, and it would only distress her."

"What about the others?" Ezio asks. "Have you told them?"

"No," Altair says sharply. "And I'd rather they didn't learn it from you, either."

"But—"

"You're children, Ezio," Altair interrupts. "All of you."

"I'm sorry?" Ezio says.

Altair runs a hand over his face and shakes his head. "I meant no disrespect," he says. "But I lived and died centuries before even you were born. There's an even greater gap between myself and the others. And I just look at you, all of you, and I can't keep from thinking how far in the future you're all from, how  _ young  _ that makes you. It's foolish, I know, but I feel I have a duty to protect you, in whatever ways I can."

Ezio stays quiet, although he is bursting with the need to tell Altair that he doesn't have to do this, they can take care of themselves. He has never heard Altair talk like this before, and it seems respectful to at least let him speak.

"For the girls, that means doing everything I can to make sure they have somewhere safe to stay. No matter what. For the rest of you, given our previous experiences with William, that means dealing with him myself, so that none of you ever have to."

"Well thank you," Ezio says, after a pause. "But… you do know that you don't really have to do this. Don't you?"

Altair nods. "Nevertheless," he says. "I think I would feel better if I continued to do so."

Which is fair enough, really, so Ezio doesn't argue. If this is what Altair wants to do, then by all means he should be allowed to continue. He does have one question left, though. “You said you give him information,” he says. “What kind of information is he after, exactly? Does he want what we know of Abstergo? Our movements? Or--”

“Nothing much,” Altair says, in a tone that can only be described as evasive. “He only asks the same two questions every time we meet.”

“Which questions?”

For the longest time, he doesn't think Altair will answer. He eventually does, surprising Ezio slightly. 

“He asks about Desmond,” Altair says. “And then he asks about Elena.”


	149. Chapter 149

"Elena?"

She's awake, sitting up and tensing for a fight, before she's fully processed that it's just Grace. Darim's right, she thinks, dully. He'd started assassin missions years before she had, and the best piece of advice he'd been able to give her before she finished her training was  _ it makes you paranoid _ . She's fifteen, just barely starting to be allowed on missions, and it's starting to get inside her head a little.

"Did I scare you?" Grace asks. "Sorry, 'Lena."

"I'm okay. But it's—" her phone is next to her on the bed, and Elena squints at the time. "It's past midnight, you should be in bed."

"I can't sleep."

"Okay," Elena says. Now that she knows there's nothing wrong, she just wants to roll over and go back to sleep. It's late and she's  _ tired _ , but Grace doesn't look like she's going anywhere. "What do you want?"

"I'm almost ten," Grace says.

"Not for another month and a half," Elena says.

"But I don't know what I wanna do!" Grace wails. Across the room, Geraldine grumbles sleepily.

"Eat cake?" Elena suggests. "Get presents?"

"But I'm gonna be  _ ten _ ," Grace says. "So I have to pick if I want to be an assassin or a templar but I just don't wanna kill anyone and dad's gonna be mad at me if I—"

"He's not going to be mad at you for not wanting to kill people," Elena says. "There's lots of other things you can do."

"Rebecca only does computers," Grace says. "But she says she's had to kill people before."

"Well—I don't know," Elena says. It's not like she  _ enjoys  _ the thought of killing people, but she believes very strongly that there are some people in the world that want to hurt others, people that are too stubbornly stuck in their ways to be changed. If she has to kill people like that to keep other safe, then that's her duty as an assassin and that's what she'll do.

"Elena!"

"Look, Grace, I'm not you. I can't pick for you."

Grace frowns. " _ Fine _ ," she says, and storms off.

"Wait!" Elena calls. "Grace, I'm sorry!" But she keeps her voice quiet because Geraldine is still sleeping, so she can't tell if Grace is ignoring her, or honestly doesn't hear. Either way, she hurries out of the room and is gone in no time at all.

-//-

Something in Haytham recognizes the feel of Grace crawling in bed next to him before he's even fully awake. So he doesn't overreact, just inches back toward Shay and Aveline to give her room, and opens his arms to hold her.

"Dad," Grace whispers. "Dad, I don't wanna kill stuff."

"Good," Haytham says. He'd much rather never see his baby girl pick up a blade.

"If I'm a templar, I don't have to?"

"Not if you don't want to."

"What about if I'm an assassin?"

Haytham does his best to ignore the little squeeze of worry in his chest. "That's your choice," he says, carefully. "But if you were an assassin, I don't know what you would have to do. I suppose you would have to talk to your mother."

Grace hesitates. "Maybe in the morning," she says. "Can I stay with you tonight?"

"Of course."

"Okay," Grace says, and she falls asleep in his arms less than thirty seconds later.


	150. Chapter 150

"How do you…" Jacob clears his throat and tries to meet the eyes of the woman sitting at the table across from him. He can't quite manage it more than a second or two. "How do you know he's mine?"

"He's yours," the woman says. Her voice is flat and tired, and her eyes, when Jacob glances at them, are dead.

"But how do you—"

"My dad got sick day after you 'n me," she says. "So I had to go and take care of him." She scowls. "Wasn't exactly sleeping with anyone else when I was looking after him, was I?"

"I guess n—"

"So he's yours."

Jacob very badly wants to argue that there must have been other men she was with before him—she's a  _ prostitute _ , that's what they do, isn't it? But every time he tries to find the words, he looks down at the baby she's brought in with her, and there's something in his face, in the shape of his nose…

"I would have taken care of him when my cycle stopped," the woman says. "I know a woman that can sell you this tea—tastes like death but it works every time." She gives a sigh of bone deep weariness. "But dad's lying on his deathbed, going on and on about how he's going to get a grandson, and I couldn't…"

Jacob fidgets, and looks down at the baby because he can't stand to look at its mother a moment longer.

"Course, he up and dies right before my labor starts," the woman says at last. "And it's too late to do anything about it then. So I'm stuck with this baby and I can't afford to feed him, I can barely feed myself—"

"I could help," Jacob tries to interrupt, but she cuts him off.

"I'm not here looking for charity," she says. "I've had quite enough trouble from you, thank you very much. But he's your son, and I thought you might be able to—"

"I don't want him," Jacob says, quickly.

The woman stares and trails off, softly. "…protect him."

"Me?" Jacob laughs, short and sharp and nervous. "No, I can't. Me? I mean, I should be the last person on Earth you want looking after your son."

" _ Your  _ son," she corrects. "And what do you mean, you can't protect him? You have money, do you have any idea how much that means?"

"I can  _ give  _ you money."

"And you have a gang," she goes on. "A city full of men fighting for you."

"It's not exactly like that—"

"Are you seriously trying to tell me that he'll be better off with me than with you?" she asks. "Dad's gone. His brother's taking his rooms—I'll be back on the streets in a week. What do you think happens to him then?"

There's something in the creed that covers this, Jacob thinks vaguely. Something about innocents. But somehow he's just—having a hard time connecting that to the idea of being a d—of bringing a kid home with him. He stares down at the boy sleeping in his basket. Just stares and stares and then realizes he's not breathing because he's panicking just  _ thinking  _ about this, and no, there's no way anyone can reasonably expect him of all people to be responsible for a child, he'd almost dropped Evie on her head once when she was visiting as a toddler—

He looks up, and the woman is gone.

Jacob swears and springs to his feet, suddenly breathless. He half moves toward the door, meaning to run out and look for her, but then the baby starts crying.

Trembling slightly, Jacob stops where he is. Then he goes back, and leans down to pick up the baby. He doesn't have a choice now, does he? The kid's mother is gone, and Jacob can't bring himself to just leave him anywhere. There's no one he can trust to take him, he can't just let the baby die…

The baby's crying gets louder, and Jacob realizes there are tears on his own face.

_ He can’t do this. _


	151. Chapter 151

They all arrive more or less at once, and for a second it's all just chaos. Jenny steps away from the noise and the chaos, until her back is pressed against the rough prison wall, and then she squeezes her eyes shut and tries not to panic. Part of her is singing with the sheer excitement of seeing her visitors all together like this, but most of her is just wishing they'd be quiet. It's the years of captivity that's done this, taken away her ability to handle even her visitors.

If anything, they're getting louder. Jeanne and Rory are arguing about something stupid. Marcello's trying to figure out when and where they are, someone's…

Jenny's eyes slide open as she realizes that under all the chaos, she can hear someone whimpering. It's the sound of someone in great pain trying to pretend they're fine, and Jenny can relate to that. She looks down, and something in her jolts. She doesn't know the woman lying on the floor, but her face is familiar. She looks so much like Jacob that Jenny knows in an instant that this must be her mother.

"Hey," she calls. Her eyes scan the crowd of visitors surrounding Jacob's mother, and—yes. Jacob is the only one missing, which means this  _ is  _ Jacob's mother, and Jenny feels fairly safe in assuming the woman is about to give birth. No one is listening to Jenny, and she can't bring herself to speak up, so she crouches next to…

What is she supposed to call her? James Kidd or Mary Read?

Kidd, Jenny decides after a moment's thought. Jacob's always gone by the name Kidd. It only seems right.

She reaches out and takes Kidd's hand, squeezing gently. "I know you can't feel this," she whispers. "I know you can't hear me, but…" she sighs, glancing around Kidd's tiny, dirty cell. "I know what it's like to be a prisoner. The worst part is being alone, and I promise that right now you're  _ not _ alone."

"Jenny?" Darim crouches down next to her, eyebrows drawn together in confusion. He looks like he's about twelve—Jenny would have said he's too young for what's about to happen here, except that he'd grown up in Masyaf, with Altair for a father. Death is not a stranger to him. "What's going on?" But maybe this will be the first birth he sees.

"Jacob's about to be born," Jenny tells him.

"No she's not," Marcello argues. He sits next to Darim, leaning over him to get a better view of Jenny. "That's not how visiting  _ works _ . We're all supposed to gather when somebody dies, not when somebody's born."

By now everyone is quiet, and beginning to gather around Kidd.

"Someone is about to die," Matthew points out. Jenny glances up and is relieved to see that he looks older than she does—this visit is going to be difficult enough for Jenny, she doesn't want to be surrounded by preteens on top of that. "Jacob's mother died giving birth to her."

"But she's not a  _ visitor _ ," Marcello argues.

"Close enough," Elena says. She's maybe twenty, twenty five—around Matthew's age. "I always hear people talking about her. They all liked her, and she knew about all of them. Maybe she couldn't see them, but… I think our parents saw her as almost an honorary visitor."

"So we're here for her," Jeanne says. "And she can't even see us?"

"Her and Jacob," Elena says.

"What are we supposed to do?" Rory asks.

"Um…"

"I know," Jenny says. "I don't know how much good we'll do, since we're just visiting, but I've seen plenty of women give birth since I've been…" she waves an arm halfheartedly, a feeble attempt to sum up her whole sorry situation in a gesture.

"Cool," Marcello says, craning forward. "Where does the baby come out?"

"Well if you pay attention, you'll find out," Rory says.

"But how does she fit?" Marcello insists.

Darim grabs him around the waist in something like a hug and pulls him back. "Not really the time, Cello," he says. "Look it up in a book when you get home, okay?"

"But—"

"Just do what Jenny tells you for now," Darim says. "Alright?"

Marcello nods, reluctantly. Then he looks up at Jenny. "But—Jacob's not born yet."

"I know," she says. She thinks she's being amazingly patient, given the circumstances. "That's why we're going to help."

"But when we do stuff on visits," Marcello objects. "It looks like the person we're visiting is doing it. And Jacob can't do anything before she's born, so what's it going to look like to her mother?"

"I don't know," Jenny says. "Guess we'll find out."

-//-

Mary has seen childbirth, once or twice. It never really seemed  _ fun _ , but this is—terrible. Worse than she ever would have expected. And she is alone, and filthy, and imprisoned, and terrified.

She has not been afraid like this since she was a very young girl, but then she has not been powerless like this since she was a very young girl. Now here she is, with no idea what to do, and a child inside her that desperately wants to be born. Irrationally, she finds herself wishing Edward was here…

As if he'd be able to help. As if he'd do anything…

Christ, but he'd make her feel better, wouldn't he? He'd make her smile, and that alone would be a miracle right now. And he'd be a reminder that this isn't all she is. That she's not just a woman, half dressed and helpless, giving birth on a dirty prison floor. She's a pirate, and an assassin, and  _ she is more than this _ .

Isn't she?

It's hard to remember, when she's lying here alone and forgotten, when the pain is her entire world, that there is anything else out there. Edward would have helped with that…

Labor seems to go on forever—Mary knows it can take hours, particularly for a first birth. But it would have been easier with someone else around. Anyone else, really.

She feels someone squeeze her hand, and squeezes back without thinking as another contraction tears through her. But when she turns her head to look, there's no one there. She can  _ feel  _ fingers, small ones, wrapped around hers. For a moment she fights to make sense of this, but then gives up. What does it matter? Someone is here.

What happens next is a kind of blur. The pain of labor only gets worse as it comes time to actually push the child out, and Mary finds her focus narrowing to just that—to the pain tearing through her, and to her daughter as she struggles to be born. But the more time that passes, the more Mary is aware of a strange sensation. Like she's surrounded by people, supported by some group of people she cannot see, can barely feel, but somehow  _ knows  _ is there.

She can still feel fingers wrapped around hers, but then there's also the occasional touch of a cool hand against her sweaty forehead. It gives her the strength to keep going, and after what seems like an actual age, she hears the shrill cries of an infant.

"Oh, God—" Mary is panting for breath, and her face hurts. It takes a second or two to realize that it hurts because she's smiling.

Not that the smile lasts for long. It seems she's only holding her child for half a heartbeat before the infant's cries bring the attention of the guards and  _ she's being taken away _ —

And in a flash, Mary understands. And she feels a fool for not thinking of it sooner, because Edward had  _ told  _ her their daughter has visitors. That must have been them, here. And Mary struggles to sit up, eyes darting around her cell as if expecting that she'll magically be able to see them, when she never has before. But all she sees is the guards, one of them holding her girl. Mary shouts after them, because she can't see any visitors but she knows how the process works from Edward. They'll be near her child, so Mary shouts in that general direction.

"You look out for her!" she screams. Her voice is hoarse and her throat is dry, and she knows she must sound both desperate and crazy. It's impossible to care. "You keep her safe," she says. "That's what visitors do, isn't it?"

-//-

"It is," Jenny says, although she knows she won't be heard. She's hanging back, as far from Jacob as she can get, holding Kidd's hand until she can't stay any longer. "She'll be safe, I promise."


	152. Chapter 152

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Consider this a sort of part 2 of the last chapter

Haytham has become used to hiding his name and his face from his father, but the first, horrible shock of this visit almost makes him forget all that. For a second he just stands there, gaping, hating the sight of his father in a gibbet. Dressed in tattered rags, skin burnt from the sun, shoulders bowed in something like defeat—Haytham has a sudden urge to help. To do something, anything, to take that pain away.

That's his father up there, and some part of Haytham is falling apart at the sight. Whatever is left of the little boy that had watched his father die in front of him is panicking because  _ it's happening again, don't let it happen, I don't want to see him die again— _

Haytham takes a breath, then another, fighting to keep his mind clear. Of course his father can't die here. He might still be fairly new to visiting, but he is fairly sure the future can't change like that. His father has to live long enough to conceive Haytham himself.

But then Edward looks up at him, gaze bleary and out of focus, and it's all Haytham can do to keep from running to him.

"Feel like getting me out of this?" he asks, in a poor imitation of his usual flippancy.

Haytham barely trusts himself to speak, but he manages to point at a rustling patch of vegetation behind Edward. "I've no need to."

He doesn't know the assassin that arrives to free his father just then, but he's absurdly grateful that the man has chosen this moment to arrive. He is considerably less pleased to see the stranger hand Edward a set of hidden blades and point him toward the prison. Does he honestly expect a man in this condition to be in any fit state to fight?

Apparently he does. To his credit, the assassin goes in as well, and Haytham occasionally catches sight of him ahead of them. He seems intent on the same mission as Edward—rescuing a pair of women called Mary and Anne, according to Edward—and for once in his life, Haytham feels no desire to interfere with an assassin mission. These are the same people that had held his father hostage. Hurt him. Haytham would happily see it burned to the ground.

Haytham shadows his father as closely as he can as they head into the prison, even borrowing his body when Edward's strength begins to flag and a group of guards rushes him. But then they arrive at the cell that seems to be his father's final destination, and Edward's steps falter. Haytham stares past him, into the filth of the cell, and frowns when he sees the huddled form of a woman on the floor. Something is wrong here.

The other assassin is occupied with the cell next door, where another Haytham can just see the dim outline of a second woman. She looks to be in somewhat better shape than the first, which admittedly isn't a high standard to beat. Edward and the assassin share a look that Haytham can't read, and then the man takes the second woman away as Edward turns back to the cell in front of him.

His face has suddenly gone pale behind his peeling sunburn, and Haytham puts a hand on his shoulder without thinking. He'd only meant to comfort him, but when Edward half turns to him, confused, Haytham mumbles, "Good luck" as a kind of half hearted explanation.

"Right," Edward mumbles. He fiddles with the door's lock for a moment (Haytham hears something break) and then the two of them step inside.

Edward immediately falls to his knees, reaching for the woman. "Mary," he says. " _ Mary _ …"

She moans, then coughs and shakes her head. "Kenway," she says. She sounds puzzled. "You're here."

Someone jostles Haytham's shoulder, and he turns to see Ezio has suddenly appeared there. Haytham tenses, expecting an argument, but Ezio is staring at the woman on the ground in apparent shock. "That's Kidd, isn't it?" he asks. "What happened?"

"I don't know," Haytham says. Behind him, his father and Mary… Kidd? The two of them are deep in hushed conversation. Haytham tries not to listen, it seems intensely personal and Haytham feels strangely guilty when he considers eavesdropping. It seems somehow safer to focus on Ezio instead. "Who is Kidd?"

"She's Kidd," someone else says. Haytham glances sideways and sees that Altair has joined them. He's still bristling with the realization that he's now surrounded by assassins when suddenly the cell begins to feel very crowded—in the time it takes to blink, all his remaining visitors have appeared around them.

Haytham edges away from the others—this many assassins, in a space as small as this cell, is making him very uncomfortable. Two or three individual conversations spring up at once, everyone trying to figure out where and when they are, and eventually Edward stops what he's doing (helping his friend to her feet) and turns round. Haytham is shocked to see tears in his eyes.

"Will you all just shut up?" he demands. "If you have to be here, at least help me!"

"Who's there?" Kidd asks.

"Everyone," Edward says.

"Oh," Shay says suddenly. "This isn't—it can't be."

"Can't be what?" Haytham asks.

"We're all here," Shay says. Like this is supposed to mean something. "Usually that only happens when one of us is about to die."

"So that means Edward—"

"I am  _ not  _ about to die," Edward snaps, interrupting Ezio.

"You might be," Ezio says, hesitantly. "I mean, has anyone ever seen Edward's death?" He glances around at the others, who shake their heads and offer up a chorus of 'no's.

"I've seen it," Haytham offers. He stares at the wall, not looking at the others. "I've seen Edward's death. It wasn't here."

"Then why are we here?" Desmond asks. "Who's dying?"

Edward gasps suddenly, and pulls Kidd closer to him. "No," he whispers. "Mary, you can't die." And it's a logical conclusion, because she's the only other one that's actually here, except Haytham can't imagine why this woman would be important enough to summon all eight visitors together.

"More spoilers?" Kidd asks, with an attempt at a smile. "Telling me when I'm going to die…"

"You're not going to die," Edward insists, pulling her to her feet.

"I don't want to," she says. "But maybe you're right."

"It's not me!" Edward says. "It's my visitors saying it, but they're wrong, alright?"

"Edward…" Ezio says softly.

"Shut up!" Edward snaps. "We're getting out of here. Both of us.  _ Alive.” _

But they don't, of course. To his credit, Edward gives it his absolute best. He supports Kidd as long as he can, and then he carries her when she can't take another step. Given that a few minutes ago he hadn't been able to fight without Haytham stepping in for him, it must be taking everything he has left to keep the two of them moving.

But finally, when Kidd has stopped moving, when her eyes are falling closed and her breathing has grown erratic, Altair puts his hand on Edward's shoulder.

"You tried," he says softly. "No one can fault you for how hard you fought to save her, Edward, but it's time to let go."

"I can't," Edward whispers. There are tears on his face. "I don't want to."

Aveline takes Edward's arm. "You need to say goodbye," she whispers.

Edward sobs instead, and Kidd half opens her eyes. "Your friends are right," she says. "It's time."

"I hate it when they're right," Edward says. "I  _ hate  _ it." He takes a shuddering breath. "They're all here for you, you know. You can't see them, but every one of them came to say goodbye to you."

"Goodbye," Kidd says, raising her voice a little. "All of you. And I'm… sorry I never got to meet any of you in person." For a second, she almost smiles. "It was a real pleasure, kissing so many of you."

"Mary!" Edward hisses, clearly appalled.

She looks at him, and in spite of everything, her half smile melts into something genuine. She doesn't say anything else, and neither does Edward—he looks like he's trying to say something, struggling for words.

"Mary," he says at last. "Mary, I need you to know, I l…" He swallows, hard, as Kidd slumps in his arms. Then he turns to Connor, who happens to be next to him. "She's gone," he says, blankly. "Gone…"

"I'm sorry," Connor says, and he genuinely sounds it. He clasps Edward briefly on the shoulder, then vanishes as his visit ends. One by one, the other visitors give Edward quiet words of sympathy, and one by one they vanish. Finally, Haytham and Edward are the only ones left.

"This is my first time meeting her," Haytham says, squirming involuntarily as his father turns a horrible, dead gaze on him. "I feel any condolences I might offer would be inadequate."

"You're lucky," Edward says. "I've seen you with her. If that's still in your future, then you still get to… she'll still be alive, the next time you see her…"

Haytham stands where he is, a few feet away from Edward, utterly at a loss for what to say, or how to comfort his father. Eventually, Edward shakes his head, and looks down at Kidd's body. "I can't leave her body here," he says. "I need to carry her out."

By the time they leave the prison, Edward is staggering—by the time he hands Kidd's body to the assassin that had freed him in the first place, he is shaking. For a long time he just stands there in silence, and then out of nowhere he turns and looks at Haytham. "She was an assassin," he says.

"That's no cause to kill a woman in such a fashion," Haytham says.

"You're not one, too?"

"I am sometimes mistaken for one," Haytham admits.

"So'm I," his father says, softly. He gives a sigh, a sound of pure misery. "Think I'll kill 'em all."

Haytham tilts his head a little, trying to puzzle this out—does he mean the assassins? The guards that had held his friend captive? Or just—everyone and anyone that crosses his path, maybe. Haytham has known men like that, men that lash out when they're hurt, spreading their pain to anyone they happen to meet. He would hate to see his father become someone like that. "It won't make up for your friend," he offers.

His father shakes his head and turns away, but not before Haytham catches the fresh tears streaking down his face. "It's something to do," he says, voice flat and oddly emotionless. "Doesn't have to be sensible."


	153. Chapter 153

It's a beautiful day, and their current safe house is a ten minute drive from a beach, so when Shay realizes he has no particular plans for the afternoon, he decides to take Grace down to look at the water.

Everyone else is busy—the older girls are at school, the assassins are having some sort of meeting Shay isn't supposed to know about, and Haytham is fighting with Abstergo's financials again. He says the computer program he's using makes things much easier than they had been in their first lifetime, but Shay is grateful he's not yet been asked to help anyway.

Today, for example, it gives him the free time to spend with Grace. Typically, Haytham is the one that goes out of his way to do special things for her—not because Shay and Aveline care for her any less, obviously not, but Grace is the sixth child they've raised together. Haytham has never had a toddler to care for before, and he  _ adores  _ her.

Today, though, Shay is the one with the time to spend with Grace, and he is hugely looking forward to it.

Grace sits in her car seat, singing a nonsense song and playing with her toes, during the short ride to the beach. She's fifteen months old, still a baby in some ways but only just. It won't be long until her vocabulary of a few words expands to full sentences. It won't be long until her stumbling steps turn into standing on her own, running away, not needing her parents…

He parks the car and goes around the back to get Grace out—she beams at him and holds her arms out to be picked up. Shay can't help from grinning back—Grace is such a naturally sweet baby. Not perfect, obviously, no child is. She can be an absolute horror when she gets over tired, and when she first started teething she'd been worse than any of Shay's other children had been, screaming and crying and refusing to be comforted.

But today she's in a wonderful mood, babbling cheerfully in Shay's ear as he carries her down to the water's edge. It's August—there are still some people here, but most of them have been driven off by the weather or the start of the school year. It's mostly quiet, and Shay and Grace have their privacy.

"Look, Grace," Shay says. He holds her securely as she brings her feet right up the edge of the water—it laps up over her toes and she shrieks in surprise and almost falls over. Shay keeps her steady. Grace looks up at him, then jabs a finger accusingly at the water.

"Papa!" she complains. "Papa—" another shriek as the water kisses her toes again, but then she giggles and kicks at the water so it splashes up around the both of them. And after that she just doesn't stop, she jumps and kicks and splashes until she's absolutely, thoroughly soaked.

And then she stops, and uses her whole arm to point at something farther out to sea. "Bo!" she declares. "Bo, Papa, bo!"

"What?"

" _ Bo! _ " Grace insists, almost vibrating with excitement. Shay squints, and finally sees what she's pointing at—way out in the distance, there's a little sailing ship bobbing up and down on the waves.

"Boat?" he asks.

"Bo!"

Shay picks Grace up and spins her around in a way he knows will make her laugh. "You like the boat?" he asks, and although she's too busy laughing to answer she nods enthusiastically. "Someday I'll have to take you sailing," Shay muses. "Your Papa used to have a wonderful ship, Grace."

"Where Papa's bo?" Grace asks, when her wild laughter has died down a bit.

"Ship," Shay corrects automatically. "And I don't have her anymore—" He frowns, briefly, because he still misses the _Morrigan_. "But I'll tell you all about her, alright?"

"Bo," Grace says happily, settling against Shay's shoulder.

"Ship," he says again, as they start heading back to the car.


	154. Chapter 154

Elena is not supposed to have killed anyone yet. She's eighteen, and not yet a full assassin, and yes, she is going on missions now but she does surveillance. Information gathering. Not the actual killing people.

Except that this one had gone bad and everything had gotten completely fucked up and now there's a dead man lying at her feet and Elena has his blood on her blade—

She feels her visitor's arrival and the relief she feels when she turns and sees that it's Matthew is indescribable. Elena makes a little whimpering noise and folds herself into him. He lets her do it, but stays tense, looking around. "Was he the only one?" he asks. "Are there more enemies coming?"

"I don't think so," Elena says. "I was working with your dad, but he was supposed to be going after the target, I was only supposed to make sure no one wandered in from outside to get in the way—" she draws a shuddering breath. "But then the target came wandering  _ out _ ."

"And you killed him?"

"I had to!" Elena says, voice rising defensively. "He was the whole reason we were here, and I couldn't just let him walk away—"

"Shh," Matthew says, squeezing her a little more tightly. "I wasn't saying you did anything wrong. I'm just trying to figure out what happened."

"What happened is I killed a man," Elena says. "And I don't think I was ready."

"You're never ready," Matthew says. "There's nothing you can do that will make you  _ ready _ to kill somebody."

"That doesn't make me feel any better."

"It wasn't supposed to," Matthew admits. "I think… when you kill someone, maybe there's nothing anyone else can do or say that will make it better. You have to come to terms with it yourself."

"Maybe," Elena mutters.

"Did you tell dad?" Matthew asks.

Elena nods. "He said I did well. And I should take some time here, then go clear my head a bit before going home."

"He's right," Matthew says. "Come on. It's not doing you any good to stand around here. Let's go somewhere else."

But Elena doesn't want to leave. She doesn't feel right, leaving, not when there's a dead man on the ground, and she'd put him there. Finally, Matthew puts his arm around her shoulders and ever so gently leads her away.

"Have you killed anyone?" Elena asks, when they're out on the street. She isn't paying much attention to where they're going, letting her feet take her wherever they want. This is the city where they'd all lived right after Elena was rescued from Abstergo, but she hasn't been back here in ages. So it only takes about five minutes of walking before she's gotten her and Matthew completely lost. Doesn't really matter.

"Yes," Matthew says. "He wasn't even a templar, or anything, just—dad was teaching me to hunt. And after a while we separated, and I ran into this man. Completely mad. He thought I was trying to steal from him, and he came at me with a knife. I didn't know how to fight yet, I'd barely even started my training. If I'd known then what I know now, it would have been easy to disarm him without hurting him. But I didn't, so by the time I got the knife away from him…" Matthew trails off.

They walk for a while in silence.

And then suddenly Elena stops dead in her tracks. Matthew tries to keep going, clearly not expecting Elena to stop, and then looks back at her when she freezes. "What's the matter?"

"This is… it's the first place we lived after I got away from Abstergo." Elena almost feels  _ bad  _ for smiling when she's just killed someone, but—it had been home before anything else was. And over time, home had changed from a  _ place _ to the  _ people  _ inside it. Elena doesn't get overly attached to the places she lives, not anymore. She doesn't care, as long as she has her family around her. But Elena had been hugely fond of this place, before they'd had to leave.

"It looks empty," Matthew says.

"Yea," Elena says. "Maybe we can go inside?"

"Sure," Matthew says. "If it really is empty these days, I don't see what harm it could do."

"Come on," Elena says, pulling at his hand. "Come  _ on _ —I want to go see inside…"

It's easy enough to break in. The Abstergo agents that had forced them to abandon the place have long since lost interest in the place themselves, so Elena and Matthew just hop a fence, pick a lock, and step into the old safe house. The place looks like it hasn't been used since they abandoned it more than a decade ago. It's dirty, full of cobwebs and grime. But it's also full of memories, and Elena feels a bit like a ghost as she leads Matthew from one room to the next. " _ This _ is where I was when I told everyone about you and our other visitors," Elena says at one point. "And  _ that's  _ where I fell and broke my leg…"

"Your cast terrified me," Matthew says. "I thought you were going to lose your leg, or something."

"I remember," Elena says, almost laughing. He'd walked on eggshells around her until the cast came off. "I've never seen you so quiet."

"Only because I was worried about you," Matthew says. "I don't know what I'd do if you were ever hurt really badly."

They head upstairs—Elena starts to calm down a bit, starts to forget the blood on her blades. The familiarity of being back in this place, with her visitor (with  _ Matthew _ ), helps to rub away a bit of the day's horror.

The bedroom she'd shared with her dad is the last place she goes. Elena can still remember how safe she'd felt here. Falling asleep with her dad's arms around her, waking up with him still there. It was the first time in her life she'd felt love from someone other than her visitors.

"God," Elena mumbles, wiping her eyes as they start to fill suddenly with tears. "This was ages ago, wasn't it? Living here."

"It's been a while," Matthew agrees. He sounds cautious, like maybe he's not exactly sure why Elena's started crying.

"It just sucks, right?" Elena says. "Like, you can't go back to places where you used to be happy. Or… you can, but they're not the same. Or maybe they  _ are  _ the same, but  _ you've  _ changed too much, and you don't fit there anymore."

She just feels like she's floating. Like ever since she'd killed that man earlier today, her feet haven't been able to find solid ground. She can't even think straight, her brain feels like a plate of scrambled eggs, all sort of chopped up and messy.

"You fit right here," Matthew says, and he pulls her into his arms, into a tight embrace that makes the world seem a little bit more solid.


	155. Chapter 155

Grace doesn't eat breakfast on her first day of school. She just pushes her cereal around in her bowl and frowns at her spoon like it's personally offended her. Aveline watches her for a while, weighing her options, trying to figure out the best moment to break into Grace's funk. Finally, she sighs and asks, "What's wrong, Grace?"

"I wanted Daddy to take me to school," Grace grumbles. She tries to stab a cheerio with her spoon, and splashes milk all over the table instead.

"I know," Aveline says. "But he and your papa had a last minute emergency. They'll be back by the time you get home from school, but until then I'm afraid you're stuck with me." She keeps her tone light, trying to make a joke out of it, but Grace just gives a little one shouldered shrug, like she agrees.

Aveline sighs. There's nothing wrong with the way Grace adores Haytham, of course, but Aveline does occasionally wish she'd be a little subtler about it.

"Can't I wait to go to school until Daddy comes home?" Grace asks.

"You can't skip your first day of Kindergarten," Aveline says firmly.

"But I want Daddy to take me!" Grace says, again. Aveline recognizes, by the way the conversation has started going around in circles, that if she keeps trying to reason with Grace they're just going to argue.

"Come on," she says instead, clearing Grace's bowl away and passing her a towel to wipe up her spilled milk. "Time to get going or we'll be late."

Strictly speaking they do have some time to spare, but Aveline fully expects Grace to waste all that extra time dawdling and staring out the window like she expects Haytham to pull into the driveway just in time to take her to school. When this doesn't happen, she reluctantly lets Aveline walk her two blocks down the street to her new elementary school. Geraldine tags along, but when Aveline and Grace head to the doors where the Kindergartners are milling around with their parents, Geraldine heads toward the third graders instead. Elena had caught her bus half an hour ago (she's starting seventh grade, and the middle school is too far to walk to), which means it's just Aveline and Grace waiting for the Kindergartners to be allowed in.

"Do I have to stay all day?" Grace asks. She fidgets uncertainly and looks up at Aveline. "Like the big girls?"

"No," Aveline assures her. "I'll be back to pick you up before lunchtime."

"You're coming  _ back _ ?" Grace asks, suddenly horrified. "You're not staying?"

"What? No, Grace, parents don't go to Kindergarten."

"But—but I thought you were going to come with me!" Grace throws her arms around Aveline's legs and sags bonelessly, like she's trying to make it as hard as possible for Aveline to shift her. "I don't wanna go by myself!"

"It's only for a couple of hours," Aveline says, holding Grace to her as she starts to cry.

"But that's like a forever!" Grace wails. "What if you don't come back?"

"I'm going to come back, Grace—"

"You're gonna forget about  _ meeeeeee! _ "

It takes Aveline several long minutes to calm Grace down, but finally Grace seems calm enough to actually listen when Aveline tries to explain. "It's going to be alright," she says, in her best no-nonsense mom voice. "I don't go to school with Geraldine, do I? And Desmond doesn't go to school with Elena."

"But they're big girls," Grace insists. "I'm only little!"

Aveline's first instinct is to assure her that she's a big girl too now, because she's going to go to Kindergarten and learn all sorts of things. But then Grace looks up at her with her big, wet eyes, and her whole face still trembling, and she just looks so small and sad that Aveline can't say the words. She doesn't like this tendency of the twenty first century to force children away from their homes when they're still practically babies. In her first lifetime, Aveline and Shay had taught their children from home—it was the normal thing to do, and there had been no need to let go of them so young.

"They were little once too," Aveline points out. "But they went to school, and they tried it, and it wasn't so bad at all."

"I wanna stay with you, Maman," Grace says.

"And I would love to stay with you," Aveline says. "But that's not how school works."

"But 'Lena's maman went to school with her," Grace argues. "She did for a whole year, 'Lena  _ told _ me."

"That was… a special circumstance," Aveline says.

Grace is pouting now. "I want this to be a special circus dance."

Aveline smiles just a fraction, but tries to hide it. This is not the time to laugh at Grace.

The Kindergarten teachers have started herding the children into something like a straight line. Aveline gives Grace one last hug, then stands up and leads her daughter toward her new classmates. "Kindergarten is going to be amazing," she tells her. "And  _ you  _ are going to be amazing."

Grace wipes her tear stained face with the back of her hand. "I'm  _ already  _ amazing," she says, in a tiny voice. "Daddy said so."

"Well then he must be right," Aveline says. "Your daddy's a very smart man."

"I know," Grace says. She takes a deep breath, and for a second looks like she's going to join the others. Then she looks up at Aveline again. "Promise you'll come back?" she asks. "Promise, promise,  _ promise _ , Maman?"

"I promise," Aveline says. "I will be waiting right here for you when you get out of school today."

"Okay," Grace mumbles. She takes a step forward, then another, stretching her hand out behind her to hold onto Aveline's as long as possible. But finally she can't stretch her arm any farther, and reluctantly lets her fingers slide away. Aveline stays where she is, watching until every last one of the Kindergarteners has been led inside. Grace is at the very back of the group, and just before she gets to the door she turns back. She frowns at Aveline and waves goodbye before a teacher gently steers her in.

"Is she your oldest?" a nearby mom asks sympathetically. "The first kid is always the hardest."

"My youngest," Aveline corrects. "She's my baby."

-//-

Aveline is back at the school a full half hour before Kindergarten lets out. She doesn't plan to be this early every day, but she isn't going to break her promise to Grace. She is absolutely going to be standing there waiting when Grace walks out.

The Kindergartners are released right on time, and ushered back toward waiting parents or the row of school buses on the edge of the parking lot. Grace is at the back of the group, again, but when she sees Aveline her face breaks into a huge smile and she charges right toward her.

"How was—"

Grace doesn't let Aveline finish, just crashes into her with so much force that Aveline actually staggers back a step, then hugs her. "You came back!' she says. "You didn't forget!"

"Of course not," Aveline says, hugging Grace back. She can't help smiling a bit—she has never felt quite so appreciated by her youngest daughter as she does now. "I will never forget you. And I will always come back."

"I love you, Maman," Grace says.

"I love you too," Aveline says. She ends the hug and takes Grace's hand to start walking them home. "Now I want to hear everything about your first day of school."

"The boy I sit next to picks his nose," Grace announces. "And then he  _ eats  _ it."

"Yes," Aveline says. "But what about your teacher? Did you learn anything?"

"I don't remember," Grace says. "But he eats it, Maman. He really does!"

Aveline sighs as Grace beams. At least she's smiling now. That's a start.

-//-

On the second day of school, when Haytham is home again, he asks Grace if she'd like him to walk her to school.

"That's okay," Grace says, enthusiastically shoveling rice crispies into her mouth. "I want Maman to do it."

Aveline tries not to look  _ too  _ pleased.


	156. Chapter 156

Abigail watches Edgar through the entirety of the funeral. It's easier than thinking about Uncle Jacob, dead. She's seen too many burials, she  _ hates  _ them, and this one is worse because this is her mother's brother. It's almost like losing her all over again.

So Abigail watches Edgar instead. He's sitting front and center, looking sad but not crushed like Abigail had half expected. He doesn't speak during the ceremony, although half a dozen others go up to talk about what kind of a man he had been, how much he will be missed, all the usual things people say when someone is dead.

At least with Uncle Jacob, it sounds like they really mean it.

Lydia talks for a while. She's calm and collected, the way she always seems to be, and even cracks the first smile of the evening when she says, "I know he's in a better place."

People have been saying that all day, of course. It's the kind of thing people say at funerals, but when Lydia says it, Abigail thinks she might mean something slightly different than most people do. And when she says it, Edgar  _ laughs _ . A short, sharp bark of amusement that Abigail doesn't understand at all. His father is dead, how can he be laughing? It had taken Abigail nearly a month to be able to laugh again when her own father passed.

When the funeral is over, Abigail joins the crowd of people trying to leave as quickly as possible. No one really likes to linger after a funeral is over, and this one is no different. In a blink, Abigail is outside on the street, swept along with the crowd of people that had come to say goodbye to her uncle.

"Thank you for coming," Edgar says, and Abigail starts a little.

"I didn't see you there," she says. "I thought… well, I guess I thought you might want to stay a while."

Edgar shrugs. "No point, is there? Dad's gone."

Abigail frowns, and looks up at her cousin. He's a big guy—muscular, tall, and broad across the shoulders. Someone like that, it would have been easy for him to spend all his time intimidating and stern, especially on the day of his father's funeral. But he's smiling, and Abigail just doesn't understand how he can look so… normal.

"Aren't you upset he's gone?" she asks. "Your father's dead, he's  _ gone _ , why aren't you… don't you miss him?"

"Of course I miss him," Edgar says. "But I know he's happy—he's with Arno."

"Who?"

"Arno," Edgar says again. He says it a little louder this time, like he thinks that maybe Abigail just hadn't heard him.

"I have no idea who that is."

"One of the visitors," Edgar says.

Abigail resists the urge to either roll her eyes or smack her cousin. "What?"

Edgar stops walking and frowns at her. "Abby," he says, with a sudden pity she hadn't expected at all. "I know your mum didn't talk about visiting as much as my dad did, but—she told you about it, right? She must have."

" _ What _ ?" Abigail is getting tired of saying the same thing over and over again, but nothing Edgar has said so far makes any sense at all.

He puts an arm around her shoulder. "Let's go get dinner," he says. "Have I got a story for you."

-//-

They go back to Edgar's house, which is probably a good thing. It takes him nearly two hours to explain visiting, and that's before Abigail starts flooding him with questions. She can't quite believe it's real, and she keeps expecting one of her questions to break his whole story apart— _ fine, Abby, you caught me, I'm making it up _ —but that never happens.

"So if all this was going on with my mum and your dad—why didn't I ever know about it? Why didn't mum  _ tell  _ me?"

Finally, a question Edgar can't answer. He drops his gaze to the table and shrugs. "I don't know," he says. "Dad gave me everything he could growing up, but he was only one person. I don't know what kind of person I would have been if I didn’t have Arno, too. I'm just glad I did. I don't know why your mum wouldn't want you to know about all that."

"Maybe because I already had a father."

"Maybe," Edgar says. "I didn't mean the visitors would have replaced Uncle Henry—you didn't need that the way I did. But they're good people, all of them, and I'm sorry you never got to know any of them."

But that's not what Abigail is sorry about. She closes her eyes and thinks about her mother, in the future. The twenty first century. Living with these… these people, her friends, these incredibly important people she'd never shared with her family. She's sorry that apparently, she'd never known her mother at all. Or maybe it's just that her mother had never trusted her. Why hadn't she ever  _ said  _ anything?

"Tell me more?" she says, and Edgar does. He tells her about all the visitors, about Arno (his second father, a man he clearly cares very deeply for). About templars (and Abigail has seen Edgar stab templars without a second thought, but he doesn't seem to mind these). About famous, long dead assassins (Abigail can just imagine how delighted her mother must have been to meet them). About Desmond—

"Hang on," Abigail says. "I think… mum did talk about him. I never knew…she didn't say he was a visitor, or that he was from the future. But she told me once about the man she was fell in love with before she married my father."

"See?" Edgar says brightly. "She  _ did  _ tell you about visitors. Or… a visitor. Kind of. Without the visiting."

"I suppose so," Abigail says. But it doesn't really seem to count, not compared to all the chances Edgar had been given to actually know these people. It seems Abigail is going to have a lot to think about, after today.


	157. Chapter 157

Desmond hasn't seen Evie in hours, and he's starting to get worried. Normally she's around when James gets home from school, no matter what else she's doing or how busy she is. She's there to make sure his homework gets done as well, of course, but no matter how much James complains, Desmond knows he likes having that time with his mom every day—he knows because today, when Evie hadn't been there, James had moped and whined and then torn his homework in half in a fit of temper. He'd looked half hopeful that this would draw Evie out to scold him.

It doesn't. James mopes while Desmond scolds him, but eventually is convinced to go get the tape and put his homework back together. Desmond leaves him to it, hoping that he's managed to convince James that tearing up homework is completely unacceptable, preferably without making his son hate him. But for now, he's slightly more concerned with Evie's absence, so he goes through most of the safe house before finding her on the roof.

She has her back to him when he joins her there, but Desmond can see she's wearing a pair of headphones, apparently listening to something on her phone. She's crying, but in a painfully Evie way—absolutely silently, and alone.

"Hey," Desmond says softly, sitting next to her. "Evie, what's wrong?"

He has to ask twice, and he's not sure if she can't hear him because of the headphones or because she's a million miles away. Either way, after Desmond repeats himself, Evie jerks a bit and looks around at him. Her eyes are red. "I'm a terrible mother," she informs him.

Desmond blinks. "Look," he says. "I know James was a little upset you weren't there today, but—"

" _ Shit _ ." Evie buries her face in her hands and shakes her head. "I didn't even think about him—I didn't realize it was time for him to get home from school yet—I just got so wrapped up in this—is he angry?"

"No," Desmond says. "A little…well he's not happy, but…"

"I'm awful," Evie says. " _ Awful _ ."

"No!"

"I am," Evie says. "I can't get anything right."

Desmond hesitates, then points at her phone. "I'm going to go out on a limb here," he says. "And guess that whatever has you so upset is on there?"

"Yes," Evie says.

"Do you want to tell me about it?" he asks softly.

Evie nods, but doesn't answer right away. "Rebecca forwarded me this email," she says. "I guess she got it from this group of assassins working in London."

"What was in it?"

"Audio files," Evie says. "I guess they were clearing back some old safe houses that haven't been used in decades, and they found this old stack of records from the 1930s, 1940s, around that time. Some of them were normal. Popular music from the time. There were a few voice recordings from the mentor at the time. He liked the sound of his own voice, I guess." She sighs, and Desmond senses that she's finally getting to whatever has upset her so badly.

"And?" he prompts, after a moment.

"And there was one… Rebecca sent it to me and Jacob as soon as she found it, and…will you listen to it?"

"Sure."

Evie pulls the headphones out of her phone so Desmond can hear as well. For a moment, there's nothing but static, a kind of crackling noise common in older recordings, and then—

_ "Oh, shit." _

_ "Is it  _ supposed  _ to make that sound?" _

_ "Yes?" _

_ "Are you sure you know what you're doing?" _

_ "I hope so, Lydia showed me five times already. She's going to start rolling her eyes at me again if I have to ask her to come back and set this thing up." _

The voices sound very vaguely familiar, but Desmond has a hard time placing them, thanks to the low quality of the recording. Evie catches his curious, sideways look.

"The first voice is Edgar," she says. "Jacob's son. And the second is my older daughter."

"Abigail?"

Evie nods.

_ "Wait,"  _ Edgar's voice goes on.  _ "I'm pretty sure it's working now." _

_ "You said that last time." _

_ "Abby, do you want to do this or not?" _

The static crackles and pops in a long, awkward silence, then Abigail sighs.

_ "This is Abigail Mir," she says. "And this recording is for my mother." _

Evie reaches down and cautiously takes Desmond's hand. He squeezes back.

_ "Mum,"  _ Abigail says.  _ "I think you'll be able to hear this, someday. Unless the record gets destroyed. Or lost. Or—" _

_ "Abby." _

_ "Sorry, sorry. Edgar's been telling me all kinds of stories, Mum. Stories that I think… I think maybe you should have been telling me. Why didn't any of us ever know about your visitors? You had this whole  _ family,  _ mum, and you never thought that was something we would want to know? Or were we just not important enough?" _

_ "Abby,"  _ Edgar interrupts.  _ "Calm down. Take a breath." _

It sounds like she's turned away from whatever they're using to do their recording—the ten or fifteen seconds she spends cursing (at Edgar, at the situation, at the multiple attempts it had apparently taken to get the recording set up) are therefore muffled and only barely audible.

_ "…and I've a right to be upset, anyway,"  _ Abigail goes on, as turns back in the right direction again.  _ "It's fine for you, your dads weren't keeping secrets from you, were they?" _

_ "Everyone's parents keep something from them." _

_ "But this?"  _ Abigail raises her voice.  _ "Did Dad know, Mum? Did you tell him that you were having mad adventures in the future, or that you'd met famous assassins from the past? He told me once that he always felt so  _ guilty _ , bringing you to India and away from Uncle Jacob. Did you tell him that you and Uncle Jacob were still visiting each other, or did you let him die thinking he'd taken your brother away?" _

Edgar tries to interrupt again.  _ "Abby, you're never going to get a chance to speak to your mother again—is that really the last thing you want to say to her?" _

_ "I wish I'd had a chance to say it before she died,"  _ Abigail says. She sounds less upset now, just sad.  _ "I don't want to be angry, I… just want to understand, and I never will." _

A long silence grows between them, and then Edgar finally says,  _ "The recording is going to run out of space in a minute. Last chance." _

_ "Right,"  _ Abigail whispers.  _ "Mum… I'm not happy with all these secrets. Obviously. Some days I'm disappointed, some days I'm very, very angry, and some days… I just don't know what to think. But I really am glad you're not dead, that you're just gone for a little while. I do love you, okay? I hope the feeling is mutual. I hope you haven't forgotten the people you left behind." _

"I haven't," Evie whispers. "Abby, I  _ haven't _ —"

_ "But I suppose you probably have,"  _ Abigail says.  _ "Or if you still remember us, I'm fairly certain you never talk about us to your new family. That's not really what you do, is it?" _

"Abigail…"

_ "Goodbye, Mum." _

The recording ends, and Evie cries. Desmond holds her until she's ready to talk again. He feels helpless to offer any kind of comfort—there had been a time when he kept his visitors from the people around him, but he hadn't had a family then, he hadn't been married, or had children. He honestly doesn't know why Evie hadn't told her family about visiting.

"They weren't a part of it," Evie says, as if reading Desmond's mind. "I loved… I love Henry, and our daughters, but they weren't visitors. I don't think I'd have  _ minded  _ if they knew, I just never saw a reason to tell them. Now I wish I had, of course, but they're all dead—"

Her voice breaks. For a long time they just sit together, holding each other. Desmond has no words of comfort to offer, and he doesn't even try. What Evie needs is her daughter, and her daughter is long dead.

"Mommy?"

Desmond shifts between Evie and the doorway as James peeks into the room, giving her the time she needs to compose herself a little.

"James," she says, when she's wiped the dried tears off her face. "I'm sorry I missed you after school, darling. I got caught up with work."

He doesn't look convinced. He can be absolutely clueless sometimes, but then there are times like this when he seems surprisingly perceptive, for an eight year old. "Are you crying, Mommy?" he asks.

"No," Evie says. "No—everything's fine."

"James," Desmond says, gesturing for him to join the two of them on the bed. He does so at once, scrambling up to sit between the two of them. "I think Mommy needs a hug right now."

"Okay," James says, and does so at once. Evie gives a sad little laugh and holds him gently.

"James," she says. "I love you very much. You know that, don't you?"

He nods. "But why were you  _ crying _ , Mommy?"

"Because…" Evie sighs. "I got a message from your sister, James. And it made me miss her."

"Elena?" James asks.

"No," Evie says. "I've never told you about your other sisters, have I?"

James shakes his head no.

"They're gone now," Evie says. "But I think they'd like you to know about them, if you want to stay here with me and listen for a while."

In the end, they stay there until dinner, James (and Desmond) listening as Evie tells them about the daughters she's left behind. When she's done, and James has gone running off to find food, Desmond hugs Evie.

"I think Abigail would have liked knowing you told James about her," he says. "I think she would have felt a little bit better, knowing you didn't forget her."

"That was never going to happen," Evie says. "I could  _ never _ forget the people I love."

"I know," Desmond says.

She smiles softly, and gives him a brief kiss. "Thank you for being here for me."

"Always," he says at once. "Just like I know you'll always be here for me."

They're still smiling at each other when James shouts up at them from the kitchen. "Mommy!" he yells. "Daddy!  _ Dinner _ !"

"Best not to keep him waiting, I think," Evie says.

"Probably," Desmond agrees. "He might just burst from impatience."

They're holding hands as they head downstairs to join the others.


	158. Chapter 158

 

They're lying side by side in bed, it's past midnight, and Desmond can't stop looking at Evie. "You're beautiful," he tells her. The words just seem to slip out, before he can stop them.

Evie laughs. "I'm eight months pregnant."

"I know," Desmond says.

"It's not a good look."

"Of course it is," Desmond says, because she's carrying their child, and that only makes her more beautiful than ever.

"You sound like Henry," Evie says, and although her voice is wistful and nostalgic, Desmond feels a little jolt of nervousness. He doesn't resent Henry, but… every time Evie mentions him, Desmond worries she's comparing them, he worries that he'll come up short—

It's stupid. She's not going to do that.

"Is that okay?" he asks instead. "That I remind you of… him—of Henry?"

"I think it's inevitable," Evie says. She sounds serenely calm, which helps to calm Desmond as well. "You are very different men, of course, but I love you both." Her voice shakes a little, and the two of them curl closer together, a movement that is perfectly in synch. "I'm not surprised that you occasionally remind me of him—there were certainly times he made me think of you, when we were married."

"I'm sorry things ended up so complicated for you," Desmond says.

"I'm not," Evie says, firmly. "I can't imagine living my first lifetime without Henry. He was so much a part of it, him and our girls. But I can't imagine being here, now, without you. I don't care if that's a bit complicated."

She turns, and Desmond stretches toward her, and they kiss. Desmond likes the way they brush against each other, the way he can feel their unborn child between them. It has taken them a long time to get to this point, but Desmond knows that it's worth it.

"Evie," he says after a while. They've settled closer together, comfortable in the silent, after midnight darkness of the room.

"Hmm?"

"I've been thinking, because… we've just been talking about you and me, and you and Henry, and it makes me think—what do I do if I visit you back when we were together in your first lifetime? Obviously I know how to behave if I visit while you're with Henry, but—"

"Hmm," Evie says again. This time she sounds like she's thinking. "I don't know why I never thought of that before."

"Because it sort of feels like I'd be—well, I don't know who I'd be wronging in that situation, but it feels like I'd be hurting  _ someone  _ if I was with a younger you."

"But technically that younger me is in a relationship with you," Evie says. "And you're married to me now, so there's nothing actually  _ wrong  _ about it, strictly speaking."

"But thinking about it still feels—"

"Strange," Evie agrees. "Absolutely."

"Do you remember if we were ever together?" Desmond asks. "Maybe when I was older?"

"It’s hard to remember," Evie admits. "Visits are so out of order, and you don't look  _ that  _ much older now than you did when we were together the first time."

"Would it bother you, if I visited a younger you and acted like we were still together? Because we are. Technically. It's just that there was a break in the middle."

"It  _ shouldn't _ bother me," Evie says. "But…"

"Exactly," Desmond says. " _ But. _ "

"We'll have to think about it," Evie says firmly, and Desmond hides a smile. She never had been one for diving into decisions without thinking it through. But it's as good of an answer as he can think of right now, so he just nods and curls up against her, and that night they fall asleep without any more discussion.

-//-

But in the morning he wakes, and while he's still at Evie's side, he's not in their bed. He's visiting, and this is— _ fuck _ , but sometimes he thinks visiting exists for the sole purpose of making him uncomfortable—this is a very young Evie lying next to him. She's smiling at him in a way that makes it very obvious this is during their first relationship.

"Evie," Desmond says, trying to hide how  _ nervous  _ he suddenly feels. He's looking at Evie, and all he can think is how much he loves her, how  _ lucky  _ he is that she loves him too—but this isn't… she's not… Desmond sighs, and shakes his head. This is not the Evie he is married to, or at least she is not that Evie  _ yet _ . And technically it probably  _ wouldn't  _ be wrong for the two of them to be together here and now, but it  _ feels _ wrong.

"Desmond?" Evie asks.

He sighs, and very gently moves away from Evie, putting a respectable amount of distance between the two of them. For a second, she looks hurt and confused by his reaction.

"Evie," Desmond says. "I love you, I do—" And that much he can say without any kind of uncertainty or hesitation, because he never wants her to doubt that he cares for her. "But can we just talk, right now?"

"Did I… have we fought, or—"

"No," Desmond says. "I just… trust me, Evie? Please?"

"Of course," Evie says. They settle into conversation, and soon enough Evie's confusion fades away—they talk for hours, until Jacob comes barging in with the dramatic announcement that  _ okay yes something's gone wrong but seriously it's not my fault this time _ and then goes running away without any further explanation.

Desmond catches Evie's eye—they both laugh.

"You're so lucky you don't have to live with him," Evie complains.

"I'm sure he's not that bad," Desmond says. It's possible that his opinion of Jacob is colored slightly by the fact that he'd spent most of yesterday stubbornly trying to put together the baby's crib,  _ long  _ after everyone else had given up on it.

"Maybe not," Evie says. "But I should go see what he's broken this time."

"Good luck," Desmond says, and she smiles at him as his visit ends.

And then he's back, he's with Evie (he spares a moment to think how lucky he is—even visits don't have to take them away from each other), and this time there is nothing to stop him from lying down at her side, to hold close—to drift back off to sleep with the woman he loves at his side. 


	159. Chapter 159

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday, Ezio! And Elena! Also, this is the second chapter posted tonight, if you happened to miss the chapter before this one.

It's been a while since Ezio really bothered celebrating his own birthday. He's old, even if he doesn't look it and doesn't feel it anymore. There have just been so many by now that they're not special anymore. Besides, Ezio has no idea how old his body is now, so birthdays are kind of a confusing mess.

Besides. Now that they've decided to make Elena's birthday the same as his, Ezio is fairly sure no one will even remember it was his birthday before it was hers. He really doesn't mind.

He's not ready to be woken up very early on the day in question, and he certainly doesn't expect to be woken by Elena. "It's our birthday," she informs him.

"Happy birthday," Ezio says, rolling over a little so she can curl up by his pillow. "How old are you?"

"Two," Elena says, and Ezio shakes his head at her, grinning. Then he pokes her nose so that she giggles.

"No," he says. "When you have a birthday, that means you're a year older."

"So I'm three?" Elena says.

"Yep."

"How old are _you_?"

Ezio sighs dramatically. "Oh, me? I'm old as the hills, Elena."  
  
"What does _that_ mean?"

"It means I'm very, very old," Ezio says.

"No you're not," Elena says promptly. "You were older when you were Cello's daddy. Did you start having backwards birthdays? Cello said he lives a long, long, long, long—" She takes a breath. " _Long_ time before me, but you were older then. Are you going to keep getting littler? Are you going to be little like me someday?"

Ezio laughs, startled by Elena's perspective—although really, she's spent so much time with her visitors and so _little_ time with anyone else so far, it's almost amazing she's not even more confused. But behind the laugh is a sharp stab of pain— _when you were Cello's daddy_. He hates the past tense, he's still Marcello's father. That will never, never change, no matter how many centuries there are between them.

Elena is still waiting patiently for an answer, so Ezio shakes his head no. "I'm not planning to get any younger," he tells her.

Elena hugs his head. "That's okay," she says. "We can still be friends, even if you're old."

"Of course we can," Ezio says. He gets out of bed and sweeps Elena up with him. "Come on, I'm going to teach you a very important birthday trick."

"What is it?"

"It's called stealing birthday cake and eating it for breakfast."

"But Daddy said cake is for dinner."

Ezio winks at her. "Shh," he says.

"Oh!" Elena stage whispers. "Secret?"

"Secret, Ezio agrees.

Altair is sitting at the kitchen table when Ezio comes down with Elena, but he very politely pretends not to notice as Ezio takes a slice for him and a slice for Elena. Ezio nods a silent thank you as he leads the giggling toddler back to his room. They eat their cake sitting on the floor next to Ezio's bed, and then Ezio sings happy birthday and Elena descends into delighted laughter, like his singing is the funniest thing she's ever heard.

-//-

When Elena turns nineteen, she gets up early, even earlier than Geraldine (who gets up early for extra classes before school starts, _because she wants to_ ). She sneaks down to the kitchen, ignoring Edward where he's fallen asleep on the stairs, and steals two slices of cake from the one Matthew and Grace had made yesterday—he'd showed up to visit, learned what day it was, and immediately insisted he wanted to do something for her birthday. Grace had heard Elena's half of the conversation and suggested Matthew borrow Elena's body to help her with the baking.

They'd made a royal mess of the kitchen and, and it had taken quite a while to finish because Grace had to explain how basically every appliance worked, but they'd had fun and Elena is touched that Matthew had gone out of his way to do that for her. The two of them can't really give each other gifts, not like other couples do.

Her stomach flips a little, and Elena can't stop smiling.

Ezio is still asleep when Elena slips into his room, but their early morning cake eating sessions are tradition now, and he'd clearly remembered because he's not sleeping with Edward. Edward's fine, but it's not _his_ birthday.

Elena flops down onto the empty space on the mattress, waking Ezio in the process. He checks the time on his phone and gives a moan so dramatic and drawn out that Elena can't stop herself from smiling. "You know birthdays last the entire day," he points out. "They don't have to start at half past five."

" _Our_ birthday does," Elena says, and he stops complaining when she hands him his slice of cake. They sit up and talk for a while, about the year that's just passed, and the year that's coming up. It's as good a way to start a new year as any, as far as Elena is concerned.


	160. Chapter 160

Jacob wakes up in a cold sweat, and for a second he has no idea where he is—the room is dark and cold and for a horrifying breath he knows that he's back with Jack, he's a captive again, he's stuck underground where nobody will ever find him—

"Jacob? What are you—"

" _ Arno—” _

Jacob half lunges across the bed without opening his eyes, where he buries his face in Arno's shoulder. "I can't leave it behind," he whimpers. "I can't make Jack die—"

"Shh," Arno whispers. "Shh—" And then something French that Jacob doesn't understand but he still likes, because he loves the sound of Arno's voice, and when he doesn't have to focus on the meaning he can just close his eyes and focus on the  _ sound _ . And that grounds him. "Jack's dead," Arno reminds him in the end.

"How do we know?" Jacob mumbles. "I mean—we're all dead, and we're still here. How do we know Jack didn't have his own group of visitors, and maybe they all figured out some way to get to the future? What if he's out there right now, and—"

"Jacob!" Arno says, clearly alarmed now. "Do you even know how tiny the chances of that are?"

"About as tiny as the chances of  _ us  _ being here?" Jacob demands. He's being irrational, and part of him knows it. But his nightmare still clings to him like cobwebs, and in this moment it seems absurdly possible that Jack the Ripper might be out there somewhere, waiting for another chance at revenge.

"Tinier," Arno insists. "Because this group of visitors, we care for each other. Okay? A lot. Any one of us would move Heaven and Earth to help any of the others. Alright?"

"Alright," Jacob says. "But  _ Jack _ —"

"Is a madman!" Arno says. "If he was  _ your _ visitor—"

An intense shudder rips through the whole of Jacob's body before Arno gets his arms around him, and he forces himself to go calm.

"Sorry," Arno says. "I didn't mean it like that. Alright, so if Jack were  _ my  _ visitor.”

"No," Jacob protests, clinging to Arno. 'That's even worse!"

"My point is, can you imagine caring for Jack the way we all care for each other?"

"No," Jacob mutters.

"So even if—by some crazy, implausible chance—Jack had visitors, there's no way they would have done anything to get him here. They'd have let him stay dead."

"You're right," Jacob says.

"I know I am," Arno says. "Now, are you ready to go back to bed, or do you want to talk some more?"

He's scared to fall asleep again, and terrified of slipping back into the same nightmare with Jack. "I want…"

"Yea?"

He just wants to stop feeling so damn  _ alone _ . "I want to marry you, Arno."

"I already said yes," Arno reminds him.

"I know," Jacob says quickly. "But I guess I meant—I want to marry you now."

" _ What _ ?"

He hadn't known he was going to say that until he got to the end of the sentence, but already he's enamored with the idea. "Yea!" he says. "It'll be great. We'll go elope somewhere. I don't want to wait anymore, I want…" he chokes up suddenly, tears tearing at his throat and pulling his words back. He wants to be tied to Arno, to be  _ married _ to him. Maybe he'd feel safe then.

"You really want to do this," Arno says. "Don't you?"

"Don't you?"

"Yea," Arno admits. His gaze is distant and half unfocused, like he can't quite believe he's saying this. "Yea, I… I do."

Jacob slides out of bed and reaches a hand back to help Arno as well. "Then let's go."

-//-

Of course, it takes hours (and then a bribe) to find someone willing to officiate a marriage at too-early in the morning. But they manage it. And Jacob… he keeps looking at Arno, and thinking  _ this is my husband _ and he just starts crying again. This is so much more than he's ever dreamed of.

"Are you thinking about Jack?" Arno asks, when they've parked the (borrowed) car in the safe house driveway. It's morning, about the time Jacob would be waking up on any other day.

"No," Jacob says. "I don't have any room for Jack in my head, it's too full of you."

Arno makes a pleased noise as Jacob kisses him aggressively. Jacob knows Arno hates when they do this in the car, he always complains about getting weird bruises from having to contort himself over the seats. Today he doesn't seem to care, and the two of them are very thoroughly occupied when someone knocks sharply on the window next to Arno's head. He jerks forward, banging his forehead into Jacob's, and both of them reel slightly as they come apart.

Jacob has a clearer view of the window behind Arno, and he groans when he sees who it is. He reluctantly wriggles away from Arno and clambers out of the car. "Haystack," he says. "You aren't  _ allowed  _ to complain about us making out in the car, okay? I've seen what you get up to with Shay and Aveline—"

Haytham points wordlessly to the sidewalk just behind where they've parked, and Jacob turns around to see a handful of neighborhood kids on their way to school, ogling them. One or two hurry on when they see Jacob looking but a third flashes him a thumbs up and a cheeky smile before his friends pull him after them.

"I thought you might not want to continue with an audience," Haytham says. "Heavens forgive me for attempting to do you a favor."

" _ I  _ don't mind if there's an audience," Jacob mutters.

"Fine," Haytham says. "Then I thought Arno might not appreciate being watched."

This is most likely true, so Jacob doesn't try to argue it.

"Where were the two of you, anyway?" Haytham adds, narrowing his eyes suspiciously at Jacob. "Getting into some kind of trouble, I assume?"

"You  _ wound  _ me," Jacob says, and he's ready to launch into a dramatic tirade when Arno finally gets out of the car as well, and interrupts him.

"We went to get married," he announces proudly, and walks past Haytham without a second look. Haytham turns to Jacob and raises his eyebrows, which is roughly the equivalent of a dumbstruck look on anyone else. Then he frowns, and the look is genuinely intimidating.

"What's so wrong about getting married?" Jacob demands. "You can't  _ possibly  _ be about to yell at me for that!"

"If you and Arno want to run off in the middle of the night to get married, instead of taking the time to plan it out, like  _ normal  _ people, then that's your decision to make."

"Thank you," Jacob says, starting to head into the house after Arno. "Now if that's all—"

Haytham stops him before he's gone three steps. "But I expect you to have a very good explanation ready for my daughter when she asks why she didn't get to be your flower girl."

"Ah…"

"She was really looking forward to that," Haytham adds, then turns on his heel and follows Arno into the house. Jacob stays where he is, suddenly very nervous about coming up with an explanation for Grace.


	161. Chapter 161

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While looking through my list of scenes that have been written but aren't yet posted, I remembered I have this scene, which references [this scene](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5892196/chapters/15900646). Probably should have posted it earlier, my bad.

Anne is the nicest grown up that Girl has ever met. Scary, sometimes, when Girl doesn't see her right away and suddenly she's just  _ there _ , right next to her, and Girl wants to hide because grown ups are scary and she's the only Girl here. If Anne gets mad at her, Girl can't hide with the other Girls and Boys.

As long as Anne stays nice, it shouldn't be a problem. Right? She doesn't look like she's going to be mean. She smiles at Girl, and after she'd scared Girl the first time she'd been extra careful not to sneak up on her. And she calls her Hannah.

…Girl likes being Hannah.  _ Girl  _ is a mean word. Soldiers say it and they sound angry, they make it sound like something mean. But  _ Hannah  _ sounds like something warm, like you couldn't sound mean when you said it even if you tried. Girl wants to be Hannah really, really bad, and she would love Anne  _ forever  _ if she lets her keep being Hannah.

Anne is talking to the big man that had come with her, the one called Ade, so… so  _ Hannah  _ tries to be quiet and listen. But they're talking about things she doesn't exactly understand, places she's never heard of and people she doesn't know. Assassins, they say that a lot, and look at Hannah like they think she's going to be upset by it.

Hannah doesn't care. She doesn't know what that word means.

But she understands when they start making plans to leave, she understands that they're leaving all the Girls and Boys behind, and she doesn't like that. "Anne," Hannah whispers, tugging at Anne's trousers. She trembles a little when Anne looks down at her, because she's still half convinced Anne is going to shout at her like other grown ups.

"What is it?" Anne asks. "Hannah?"

"Other Girls," Hannah says. "Boys?"

"What?" Anne says.

"Help," Hannah says. "Please?"

Ade kneels down and takes her hand. His swallows hers. "Your friends have to stay where they are, child," he says, and even though he doesn't smile, Hannah doesn't think he's angry. Just sad. "I wish we could help them, but there are a lot of bad men watching them."

Hannah nods. She knows that.

"Maybe someday we can come back," Ade says. "But getting a lot of children away from the bad men is harder than getting one away. They might get hurt—they're not happy where they are, but at least they're safe."

This time, Hannah shakes her head no. What about when Boy called one of the soldiers a bad word, and they hit him so hard he fell down and didn't ever get up again? Or when Boy (a different Boy) got sick and they took him away and never brought him back? Hannah starts to cry and puts her hands over her face so Anne and Ade won't see. "Help?" she says again.

She peeks out through her fingers, and sees Anne and Ade exchange a grown up look over the top of her head. Then Anne crouches down next to Ade, and puts a hand on Hannah's back. "We'll try," she says, and Hannah's tears dry up and go away because Anne can do anything, Anne gave her a  _ name.  _ Girls and Boys can be safe now.

-//-

They leave Hannah on a ship with some sailors that wear swords and guns like the soldiers. But they don't act like soldiers, even if they're not as nice as Anne and Ade, so Hannah tries to be brave. One of them shows Hannah everything on the ship, which is so much fun she (almost) doesn't miss Anne. She likes the ship, and she keeps climbing up the rails and leaning over to see the water. Her sailor friend chases her when she does that, and it's fun like a game.

At nighttime, when the huge darkness of the sky over the ship starts to make Hannah feel little and scared, Anne and Ade come back. Anne's arm is bleeding and Ade looks so serious he's almost scary, but they have Girls and Boys. Hannah goes running over to them, and hugs her friends. Everyone looks different outside the little hut that's been Hannah's home for her whole life—smaller, because of all the open space, and dirtier, because it's so much easier to see it when they're not crammed together in almost darkness.

But also happier. Because they're free. And Hannah looks up at Anne as she and Ade run to the ship's wheel (they look like they're in a hurry to get moving, and Hannah feels a kind of thrill run through her because she knows the soldiers will never catch them now). Anne looks down at her, just for a second, and Hannah smiles as big as she can in gratitude.

-//-

Girls and Boys don't stay with them for long. Anne and Ade know lots of people, and for a few months they sail all over the place to talk to those friends. Sometimes their friends agree to take in Hannah's friends, and sometimes they know other people that will. Even Ade leaves in the end, back to his Assassins, whatever  _ they  _ are, with two of the bigger Boys and one bigger Girl that want to come with him.

Only they're not Boy and Boy and Girl anymore, they have names now. They  _ all  _ have names now.

They don't sail too much longer after that. Hannah is a little sad at first, because she loves their ship, but then Anne takes her by the hand and brings her to a little house, on the edge of a quiet little port town. "This is going to be home now," she tells Hannah. "Is that okay?"

"My home too?" Hannah asks, just to check.

"Your home," Anne agrees. "And my home."

Hannah just nods and hugs Anne, because she doesn't know the right words to tell Anne that this is  _ perfect _ . 


	162. Chapter 162

All her parents are out on missions, so when Grace needs someone to make her feel better, she goes to Connor.

"It's Halloween," she informs him.

He blinks at her in mild confusion, which is probably fair because she'd just sat on him to wake him up. Then he looks at the time on his phone.

"It's not Halloween anymore," he points out.

"But it's still Halloween  _ night _ ," she says. "Elena says that's when the scary things come to get you."

"Elena is trying to scare you," Connor says firmly.

"Well it  _ worked _ !" Grace wails. She clutches her favorite stuffed princess (this month it's Mulan) closer to her chest. "She said there's ghosts, and scary monsters, and—"

"None of that is real," Connor says.

"But how do you know that?" Grace asks. "You don't know everything, maybe there are lots and lots of monsters and you just never saw them."

"I used to track down fake monsters for a man called Daniel Boone,” Connor says, in the same matter of fact tone of voice he uses to explain why she shouldn't be eating the sugary breakfast cereals. "So I know they're not real."

"Oh," Grace says. "You did?"

"Yes," he says. "So I know that sea monsters and ghosts and sasquatches—"

Despite her Halloween fear, Grace laughs a little at the word  _ sasquatch _ . That's silly.

"None of them are real," Connor says. "Alright? So there's no reason to be scared of them."

"Geraldine told me a story about a man who rides around on a horse with a pumpkin instead of a head," she informs him. "Did you ever find that guy?"

Connor hesitates. "Well—I did go looking for him, yes."

"And did you prove he's a fake guy too?"

He hesitates. Grace frowns.

"Connor?"

"Well he  _ might  _ not be real," he says reluctantly. "But I did find a man riding a horse with what looked like a pumpkin head. But I didn't get a chance to question him, so it could have been a kind of pumpkin hat, I suppose."

Grace squeaks and dives into bed with him, where she curls into his side and shakes until he promises not to let any scary things get her.


	163. Chapter 163

"You're married," Evie says, blankly. " _ Married _ ?"

"Yep," Jacob says, and maybe he's too blissfully caught up in Arno right now to notice that something is wrong, but Desmond notices. He wonders if he should say something, but he's always had the feeling that Evie's relationship with Jacob is something he shouldn't touch. So he keeps quiet, and focuses on steering James out of the room. If Jacob puts his foot in his mouth (as Desmond suspects he will) and the twins start arguing, James doesn't need to see his mommy losing her temper.

By the time he's gotten James out of the room, and tracked Elena down,  _ and _ gotten her to agree to watch her brother for a little while, Desmond can hear raised voices from the room where he'd left Evie and Jacob. He hurries back in—not because he's particularly eager to get in the middle, but because he's concerned that Jacob is actually going to hurt Evie. Not on purpose, but…

"You didn't  _ tell  _ me, Jacob!" Evie is shouting, when Desmond comes back in. He takes in the angry look she's aiming at Jacob, and decides it would be best to hide in the corner with Arno. He sits down in an empty seat next to the one Arno is sitting in, and turns to watch the argument. "You went off and got married and didn't even tell me!"

"I  _ did  _ tell you," Jacob says. He looks legitimately surprised that she's yelling at him so much. "You knew I proposed to Arno, marriage usually comes after that at some point—"

"But I thought you were going to do it like a normal person," Evie says. "I thought you were going to take the time to plan it, and invite all the people that care about you, because—and I know this is hard for you to wrap your head around, Jacob, but we might just want the chance to see you happy!"

"I was happy until you started shouting at me!" Jacob says this in a voice that is half shouting himself, but also half whining. "Evie—"

"I wanted to see you get married, you— _ ooh,  _ you idiot!"

"Evie, don't cry—"

"I'm not crying," Evie says, in the tight, firmly controlled tone that means she's making a point of not shedding tears. "I'm just extremely angry with you."

For a second, Desmond genuinely thinks that she's gotten through to Jacob, and he's going to apologize. Then Jacob grins. "If it makes you feel better," he says. "You can still get us a wedding present."

"We married crazy people," Arno says from Desmond's side, as Evie gives Jacob a disbelieving look. "They are completely and utterly mad."

"You're just figuring all this out now?" Desmond asks.

Evie gets ahold of herself, and the shouting resumes.

"Well, I mean I knew that already," Arno mutters. "But, um…" He gestures to the still bickering twins. "It's just really hitting home for me right now, for some reason."

Desmond snorts in laughter. "You get used to it," he says. "Don't worry."

"Yea?"

"Oh yea. Trust me—" Desmond looks up at Evie, and he could swear his heart physically skips a beat. "If you ask me, there's no one better in the world that either of us could have chosen to marry."

"I guess," Arno mutters.

"Oh yea," Desmond says, with absolute confidence. He puts his arms around Arno's shoulders. "Welcome to the family, Arno."

Arno's just starting to get his smile back when Grace comes running in, stomps her foot, and then kicks Jacob's ankle. "You didn't let me be your flower girl!" she shouts at him. "I was going to wear the pretty dress Maman helped me pick, and Daddy said I was gonna get a whole basket of flowers and you didn't let me come!" She kicks him again with a little grunt. "Bad Jacob!" she says, and then runs off, crying.

"Hey!" Jacob calls after her. "Hey, I didn't just run off and get married on my own, you know. It takes two people, why aren't you angry with Arno as well?"

No answer from Grace, but Arno shifts uncomfortably next to Desmond. "Come on, Jacob," he says. "We should go apologize."

"We didn't do anything wrong!" Jacob protests. "We got married, that's a good thing!" He looks genuinely disappointed, and Evie sighs, visibly softening.

"Congratulations," she says, giving him a quick hug. "But you're still rather an idiot. Now go make things better with Grace."

Jacob makes a dramatic noise. It makes Arno laugh, which makes Jacob smile, which makes Arno flush, and then the two of them just look at each other and smile like the rest of the world doesn't even exist anymore. This lasts until Evie manages to prod them out of the room, and get them heading in the same direction Grace had run off in.

When the two of them are alone, Evie joins Desmond in the corner, taking the seat Arno has just vacated. "I am happy for him," she admits.

"I know," Desmond says. He shifts closer, until the two of them are leaning comfortably against each other.

"But don't you dare tell him," Evie adds.

"I wouldn't dream of it," Desmond says, and kisses her. Evie smiles against him, and for a little while, everything is perfect.

-//-

Half an hour or so later, they go to relieve Elena of her little brother watching duties. On their way past the kitchen, they see Grace standing over Jacob and Arno. Both of them are sitting on the floor while she focuses on sticking as many flowers as possible into their hair.

"Well," Desmond says. "That just happened."

And he beams as Evie laughs.


	164. Chapter 164

It's not quite a honeymoon, because they're here for a mission and that means there's actual work to do, but Arno is amazed at how nice it is just to be alone with Jacob. With his husband—it hasn't been long, but Arno highly doubts he'll ever get used to that word.

And it's not like the work they're here to do is all that difficult. They're staying in a tiny little farming town (population about five hundred), keeping an eye on a retired Abstergo octogenarian that had apparently 'borrowed' a piece of Eden when he left the company. Every so often someone from the company comes by to try and persuade him to tell them where it is, but apparently there's some bad blood there because the old man hasn't told anyone anything so far. The assassins would be perfectly happy to see its location die with the old man (he doesn't have much in the way of friends or family, and they've already broken into the house to see if it's there—it's not), so their job so far has been literally just watching Abstergo goons walk away frustrated. It's very satisfying—Arno suspects Altair had sent them out on this assignment as a kind of wedding gift.

Other than that, they fill their days however they can. One of the farms surrounding the little town is used for boarding horses—Jacob makes friends with the owner, and sort of accidentally gets himself a job. Arno teases him mercilessly for being a productive member of society, until Jacob smugly points out that at least they have a reason to be in town now, and people aren't giving them nosy, suspicious looks anymore. Arno suspects this is not really as important to Jacob as the opportunity to spend his days with the horses—how many times has he walked in on Jacob's  _ who's a good boy? You are!  _ routine now?

But he does actually have a point about people treating him with less suspicion now that he has a job, so Arno looks around, and…well, teaching French at the local high school isn't his dream career, but frankly the last guy with the job had apparently told his students French fries were the national food, and that's just embarrassing.

So they settle into something like a routine. They work, they run errands, they come home—

And that's Arno's favorite part. Every single night, he gets to come home and find Jacob waiting for him. Usually smelling of horse manure but always thrilled to see him. Sometimes he thinks it would have been enough for him, a life like this. He could have been happy, living a normal life, doing normal things. He wouldn't have minded if falling in love with Jacob was his last and greatest adventure. Sometimes he catches himself thinking about his life like this really is it—he'll start making plans for a year down the road, then remembers they won't be here. He'll go a week, sometimes two, without bothering to do anything to stay in shape, then remember he's not  _ normal _ , he's an  _ assassin _ , and then it'll be back to early morning runs and sparring with Jacob in the evenings and wishing he could trade it away for a full night's sleep… it would just… it would be nice. If they stayed.

But even if Jacob is happy enough at the moment, with his horses and the friends he's made in town, Arno can see the way this place is starting to chafe at him already. They've been here half a year, and the old man they're here to watch has recently taken a turn for the worse. Just in time, too. Soon enough, their mission will be over and it'll be time for them to rejoin the others. Jacob will be over the moon, and Arno—well, he'll be with Jacob. Funny, how important that's gotten.

So that's why he doesn't complain when Jacob wakes him up in the middle of the night to complain that he's bored.

"What do you want to do?" Arno asks instead.

"Dunno," Jacob says. "Do you want to just go for a ride?"

"Sure," Arno says, and five minutes later they're in their battered car and headed for the mostly empty roads around town. Jacob drives, and Arno sits in the passenger seat, watching the farmland fly past.

"Kind of like old times," Jacob says. "Isn't it?"

"You mean when you'd go racing trains around London and tell me to navigate?"

"Yea," Jacob says. "Exactly."

Arno considers this. "Well, your driving's improved."

"I've always been a good driver," Jacob says. "Do you think it's easy to drive a horse and carriage in a street race? Because it's not, and I  _ never  _ crashed."

"Alright," Arno says. "Fair point."

"But that's not what I was talking about anyway," Jacob says. "I meant… you know. It's just you and me again." They come up to a fork in the road, and Jacob comes to a smooth stop in front of the stop sign. "Left or right?"

"You pick."

"That's not how this  _ works _ ," Jacob says. "You're my navigator—I'll go where you tell me."

"Left," Arno says, on a whim, and Jacob obligingly takes them left.

They go on in silence again for a while, and again Jacob is the one that speaks first. "You like it here, don't you?"

He sounds absolutely casual, but the question puts Arno on edge. They haven't exactly talked about it, how Jacob's itching to move on, while Arno would be just as happy to stay. Arno's been doing his best to hide it, and he hadn't even been entirely sure that Jacob had noticed. Apparently, he had.

"It's not a bad place," he says, after a moment or two spent trying to find the safest answer. "The people are nice. They're not obsessed with always having the newest phone or computer or whatever, like some of the other places we've been."

"And it's what you always wanted, isn't it?" Jacob asks. "I mean, when we first met, you wanted to settle down somewhere in the middle of nowhere with Elise and have a…a basketful of kids or whatever, right?"

"A basketful?" Arno echoes. "I don't think that would be all that many babies, actually, unless you had a really big basket—"

"You know what I  _ mean _ ," Jacob says, a little edge of frustration working its way into his voice.

"Yea," Arno admits. "I guess that's pretty much what I wanted."

"Left or right?"

"What?" They've reached another stop sign, another fork in the road. "Right. Jacob—"

"So this is sort of perfect for you," Jacob says. "Living here."

"I really, really like it here," Arno admits. He's not entirely sure what Jacob's getting at, but he's getting the idea that Jacob is going to put a lot of weight on his answers. "I miss the others, but it's not like we never talk, and it's so much easier to travel in this century, and—yea. Like I said, I really like it here."

Jacob grunts, but doesn't say anything else for a good long while. He just keeps driving.

"You're worrying me," Arno says, when he realizes Jacob isn't going to say anything. "You're never this quiet."

"I'm thinking," Jacob says.

"About what?"

"Left or right?"

Another fork in the road, another choice. "Right," Arno says again. "What are you thinking about?"

"I'm thinking—we could… we could stay."

"What?" Arno almost laughs. "Stay  _ here _ ?"

"Well, not in the middle of some random road, but in town. That Abstergo guy's going to kick the bucket soon but nothing says we have to leave when he dies."

"There's not much for a couple of assassins to do around here," Arno points out.

"I know," Jacob says. "That's exactly what I mean."

"Wait, you're—what? You're saying you don't want to be an assassin anymore?"

"Of course I want to be an assassin," Jacob says. "That's all I've ever wanted to do."

"Then that was a stupid question, wasn't it?" Arno asks. He's starting to feel very slightly irritated. "Why ask it in the first place?"

"Just think about it," Jacob says.

"Why? You already said you want—"

"It's not just about what I want, Arno!" Jacob snaps, and he slams his foot on the brake so abruptly that Arno—not expecting it—almost hits his head on the dash. For a moment they just sit there, the only people on a midnight road in the middle of nowhere. Jacob won't meet Arno's eyes. "I'm sorry," he mutters. "I just mean… you  _ like  _ it here. And I want us to do things you like, because we're married now, right? We're not a you and a me anymore, we're an us. And if you want to stay—maybe we should."

"Compromise is great, Jacob," Arno says. "And it really means a lot that you're thinking about me, and you're willing to give up so much to make me happy, but… this is our life. It's not just letting me pick what we have for dinner or what movie we watch."

"I know," Jacob says. "I really want you to be happy. You would be if we stayed."

"Sure," Arno says. "But you wouldn't. Of course we'll go home when the mission's over. We'll go back to everyone else, and hunting down targets, and—"

"But is it what you  _ want _ ?" Jacob insists.

"I'm happy as long as you are," Arno says. "I'm  _ happy _ , as long as I'm with you."

"You're just saying that," Jacob mumbles. "Aren't you? Because you think it's what I want to hear?"

"No," Arno insists.

Jacob mutters something inaudible and stares at the steering wheel. They just sit there for a while, chafing against the unhappy silence taking up space between them, and then—

A long, shrill shriek pierces the night, somewhere far off. Jacob ignores it, still staring at the steering wheel, but Arno glances left in the direction of the noise. He's hoping for a distraction, but smiles when he realizes this is something better. "Jacob," he says, nudging him gently. "Go left."

"What?"

Arno points, and Jacob squints after his finger until he sees the freight train hurtling across the countryside a mile or so away. "I think we can catch it," Arno says.

"Really?" Jacob says. " _ Now _ ?"

Arno leans across the space dividing them, and gives Jacob the most passionate kiss he can manage while sitting in the cramped front seat of a car. It's a little unpolished, a little messy, but when it's over, Arno is glad to see that a little spark of excitement has come back into Jacob's eyes.

"So maybe being an assassin was never my first choice," Arno says. He's speaking quickly now, because if they waste too much more time talking, the train is going to get away. "But it's the choice I made and I stick to my choices."

"Really? You  _ really  _ wouldn't rather stay here?"

Arno's heart is beating more quickly than it has in months, and he would never have expected it but suddenly he's bursting to go do something stupid and dangerous with Jacob. "I really wouldn't," Arno says.

"But—"

"Train, Jacob!" Arno says, as it starts to disappear into the distance. "Or are your train racing skills rusty?"

Jacob grins—his I'm-going-to-do-something-stupid grin, the one Arno hasn't seen on him in months, not since they came here. Arno grins back, and then Jacob slams his foot on the gas, spins the steering wheel left, and then they're off like a shot, tearing after the train as fast as the car will go, racing it toward the horizon.

And they win, of course.


	165. Chapter 165

"So…" Desmond rubs nervously at the place where one arm ends with his other hand, and tries not to look at the man sitting opposite him in the small office. Dr. Horace Wilkerson. Therapist. "I'm not really sure this is a good idea. I haven't told anyone at home that I wanted to come talk to you. And I don't really know… I mean, it's kind of a complicated…" he sighs, shoulders slumping. "I can tell you right now that there's a lot of stuff I can't talk about."

"Everything you say in these sessions is confidential."

Desmond flinches a little at sessions, plural. He's pretty sure he doesn't want to come back. It was hard enough to get here the first time. "Not everything," he says. "I looked it up. You have to report it if I threaten to harm someone, or mention someone being abused, or—"

"Are you planning to threaten harm or abuse?" Dr. Wilkerson interrupts.

"No!" Desmond says, and then bites his lip because hopefully that hadn't come out too quickly. It had taken him weeks to work up the courage to walk in here, into a  _ therapist's  _ office, in the first place. Now that he's here, he'd rather be able to talk about all the things that are bothering him. And yes, actually, the fact that he has killed and will kill again in the future still bothers him sometimes. But that's not really an option.

"Then you have nothing to be concerned about."

"What if…" Desmond trails off, not quite sure if he wants to ask this question out loud. But there are dangerous people looking for him, and this is a reasonable thing to ask, in his situation. "Okay, so hypothetically, what if dangerous men with guns broke into your house in the middle of the night and, say… tortured you and your family to find out what we talked about today?"

There's a long pause, during which Dr. Wilkerson looks down at his notes. Desmond recognizes the survey he'd had to fill out before coming in. "You didn't mention you had issues with paranoia," he says at last.

Desmond bites his tongue before he can say 'It's not paranoia if they're really after you.' "But just… what would you do, if that happened?"

"I…"

They stare at each other.

"Never mind," Desmond mutters. "Of course you'd tell them everything, it's a normal reaction. Don't know why I asked, really."

"I'm interested in all this, actually," Dr. Wilkerson says, leaning forward slightly. "I think we should probably talk about this concern you have that someone's coming after you—"

"I'd rather not," Desmond interrupts. "I sort of came here for something specific."

"Fair enough," Dr. Wilkerson says, but he looks slightly let down. Maybe he'd been looking forward to some out of the ordinary crazy. "What do you want to talk about?"

"My dad."

"Oh,"Dr. Wilkerson says. Desmond  _ almost  _ smiles at the obvious disappointment in the man's voice. He had definitely been hoping for something more interesting, and here's Desmond coming in to complain about his parents. Not exactly original. "Well, go ahead."

"Okay," Desmond says, shifting again on the uncomfortable plastic seat. "So—just so you have some background, we don't have a good relationship. Never have. He pushed me really hard when I was a kid, and I mean  _ really  _ hard. He wanted me to learn to fight, obviously, but he—"

"Obviously?"

Right. It's  _ not  _ normal to train your kids to fight. "Um—I mean, just because… that's—he's just that kind of guy, you know? Really, um—he's weird. But anyway he pushed me hard, I hated it, and I ran away when I was sixteen. We didn't meet up again for almost a decade, and that was just a mess. We fought a lot, he hit me once, and eventually I told him I didn't see him as a father anymore and I didn't want him in my life."

"That sounds good," Dr. Wilkerson encourages. "It can be very healthy to cut that kind of relationship out of your life."

"But that's just the problem," Desmond says. "Just recently he showed up again." The visitors have access to the same set of safe houses the other assassins use. Sometimes this means they have unexpected and unwanted meetings. Like the one where William had just walked into the middle of dinner one night last month, caused a huge scene, and almost punched Haytham. Elena had cried a lot, and Desmond had just… sat there, too stunned by William's sudden reappearance to even comfort his daughter.

Which is why he's here now, telling his problems to a complete stranger. He's almost used to the scars his childhood had left on his psyche, but now they're hurting Elena too. Maybe it's time for some professional help.

"Tell me about that," Dr. Wilkerson encourages.

"Well, he was passing through," Desmond says, speaking slowly to make sure he doesn't accidentally say anything too weird. "He travels a lot. For work. And he needed a place to stay so he just showed up, and got into an argument with my dad—"

"Your dad got into an argument with… your dad?"

He is so absurdly bad at this.

"I have a dad that I'm actually related to," Desmond says. "And another one that just  _ acts  _ like a father figure. Well I mean he's technically related to me too, but it's more of a distant relationship. But, um… he's always been there for me, and these days I mostly call him dad and my birth father William."

"Alright," Dr. Wilkerson says. "So the two of them started fighting?"

"Yea," Desmond says. "Edward really wanted them to get in a fist fight, but luckily no one listens to him, so they just argued and then dad told William to leave and eventually he did."

"Edward?"

"He's one of my…roommates."

"Roommates."

"Yes."

They stare at each other again. Dr. Wilkerson's expression says very clearly that he knows that basically everything Desmond has told him today has been a load of bullshit, even if he's not exactly sure what the truth is.

"Is it maybe a little more complicated than this Edward just being your roommate?" Dr. Wilkerson asks.

"He… might possibly be my adopted grandfather," Desmond admits. "Technically." And also his ancestor. And a pirate. And they definitely used to kiss when Desmond was especially crazy and needed to remember who he was. And even though Desmond doesn't say any of this out loud, maybe some of the complexity shows on his face, because Dr. Wilkerson reaches almost immediately for his calendar.

"Right," he says. "I'm going to go ahead and book you in for weekly sessions indefinitely. Unless you have an objection?"

"No," Desmond grumbles, sliding down in his chair a little bit. Honestly, he probably needs this.


	166. Chapter 166

The therapist's office is not the most interesting place Altair has ever been. Uninspiring pictures hang on the walls, and the college is a drab shade of gray. One corner has a small collection of children's toys, presumably for encouraging them to open up to a stranger.

"So," the therapist says.

Altair says nothing.

"I understand that you didn't really want to come here today," the man continues. "But I appreciate that you made it."

The silence stretches on.

"You know," Dr. Wilkerson says. "This usually goes better when you try to at least talk—"

Altair raises his eyebrows.

"…alright then." The therapist takes a deep breath. "So some of your… friends?" He hesitates, apparently waiting for some kind of confirmation from Altair. Altair keeps his face completely impassive. "They come in and talk about the, um… the really weird stuff that they need help with.” Altair is aware of this. The trend had started when Desmond went in to talk about William, and has spread from there until nearly everyone in the safe house--visitor or no--has had at least one appointment with this therapist. “So if you want to share anything, that's… I mean, I think I've heard it all by now. No judgment or anything, I've seriously heard every weird thing there is to hear by now."

Altair is aware of this as well. He'd only come here today because Altair has a nasty feeling that it's only a matter of time before the others start suggesting that he give therapy a try as well. Even though he's perfectly fine. And absolutely does not need to talk about his problems. So now he's here, just to prove that he doesn't need to be here.

Of course, with reasoning like that, maybe he does need to be here.

He smiles, just a fraction. No. Therapy might help some of the others, but Altair is perfectly content to keep his own counsel.

Still, watching the poor therapist get progressively more flustered as the hour wears on is its own special kind of therapy. It certainly cheers Altair up immensely. He's been dreading this appointment since he first made it, but it's turning out to not be so bad after all.

Eventually the session ends, and the therapist sends him on his way with obvious relief. Outside, Connor is waiting with the car. He'd had some errands to run, and it had seemed foolish not to carpool.

"How did it go?" Connor asks.

Altair considers this for a moment, then shakes his head. "I don't think counselling is for me," he says. "It's not fair on the therapist."


	167. Chapter 167

Dr. Wilkerson has no idea what they're talking about, but he's starting to get used to that with Edward Kenway. It's all he can do to try and keep up, and hope that he's not making the man's mental state any worse.

Of course, he's a self described ex-pirate (not the illegal download kind, he'd been quick to add) with an alcohol problem he won't admit to. His head's obviously already kind of a mess, and Dr. Wilkerson really doesn't know how anything he says or does  _ could  _ make anything worse. It's actually sort of nice. People come to his office all the time looking to be fixed, and Edward very clearly just wants some conversation.

Except for today, because as soon as Edward comes in, he says, "Jacob wants to talk to you."

"What? Who's Jacob?"

"Uh…" Edward glances over at…nothing, really. Then he focuses again. "Okay, so like I don't know what everyone else has been telling you but basically we all met through this thing called visiting, it's sort of like time travel but not really."

Dr. Wilkerson just nods, because this is usually the best course of action when Edward starts spouting nonsense. Eventually he'll cycle back around to sort of sounding sane.

"Then of course we all died," Edward says.

"Oh, sure, of course."

"And we all ended up in this century, which was great and we didn't have to actually visit anymore. But then we got  _ more  _ visitors. So like Jacob's here now and he wants to talk to you."

"No one's here."

"Well he's invisible," Edward says, like this should have been obvious. "But it's okay, because he can take over my body and talk to you like that."

" _ What _ ?"

"And he's coming in now," Edward announces dramatically. Dr. Wilkerson just looks at him for a second. He'd half expected something dramatic.

"So do I just talk?" Edward says. "Or…?"

"Jacob?"

"Yea," Edward says. "I know, Edward's pretty bad at explanations—yes you  _ are _ , Edward, you didn't even use the index cards this time—but can you just skip to the part where you pretend this is real and give me some advice? I know you've been trying to help everyone else, and I really, um—"

He looks so earnestly desperate that Dr. Wilkerson finds himself nodding. "What exactly do you need to talk about?"

"This man—Roth—I was working with him for a while, and we're, um…  _ not  _ working together anymore, there was this big fight and we, um… he kissed me."

Jacob—or Edward, technically, but right now he isn't acting like Edward—stares down at his hands like he's trying to burn a hole in them. "And I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since."

"You're think you might be attracted to him?"

Jacob tenses, just for a second, before he seems to force himself to stop. "Maybe," he says. "But he's dead now, and there's, um… someone else. See, this guy kissed me, and like I said I couldn't stop thinking about it because I've never… not with a man, you know? And then one of my visitors showed up. Arno. And I kissed  _ him  _ because… I don't know, I thought it'd make me feel better. Forget about Roth. Only it  _ didn't _ , it just made everything worse. Because I guess I could sort of live with the things Roth made me feel. I sort of just want to kiss him again and then I feel like I'd be fine. But with Arno, I think I l—I think…"

He stops. His expression is… confused. Almost longing but not quite, like he can't bring himself to even hope for this.

"That's not supposed to happen," he says, in a very slow, firm voice. It sounds like he's trying to keep from sounding too broken up by all this. "I like spending time with Arno. I like racing trains and blowing stuff up and whatever. But everything kind of changes if I lo—if I want to kiss him again. Which I do. And it's never going to happen because he's never going to get over Elise, but…"

After a long pause, he says, "I need you to fix me. Isn't that what you're supposed to do?"

"Do you think you're broken?"

"I think I can't keep feeling like this," Jacob says. "There's no point. I want Arno. He doesn't want me. What am I supposed to do with that?"

Dr. Wilkerson considers his words for a moment. "It's not about Arno," he says.

"Of course it is."

"It's not. It's about you, and being comfortable with who you are."

 

"No," Jacob says.  "I'm pretty sure it's about Arno."

Dr. Wilkerson tries again. "I'm not questioning your feelings for your friend. I'm just saying that you can't control the way he reacts to you. Maybe he's attracted to you as well, maybe he isn't. The only thing you can do is control yourself. Either you learn to live with whatever Arno does, or you let it break you."

"I—"

But then he stops, and a second later shakes his head. "Jacob's gone," he announces.

Dr. Wilkerson blinks—for a second, he'd almost forgotten it's actually Edward sitting in front of him, not Jacob. Although after that conversation, Dr. Wilkerson is finding himself almost… believing Edward's story about invisible, time traveling visitors. Impossible as it sounds, the person that had just sat there struggling to admit feelings for their friend hadn't seemed anything like ex-pirate Edward Kenway.

"So you're Edward again," he says.

"Yep."

"That was… strange."

"Yea, I guess. But…" Edward looks unusually serious. "Thanks for talking to him."

"I don't think I did very much."

"Well from what I've seen on other visits—they're not usually in order—Jacob's going to spend the rest of his life waiting for Arno to love him back," Edward says. "Nothing anybody says is going to spare him all the pain he's going to put himself through. But I think you helped a little. That's good eno—oh, Arno, hey!"

"So now Arno's here?" Dr. Wilkerson asks, despite the fact that Edward doesn't seem to be paying attention to him. He's listening to someone Dr. Wilkerson can't hear, nodding occasionally. Then all of a sudden he breaks away from his (maybe, maybe not) one sided conversation, grinning.

"You'll love this," he says. "Arno wants to talk to you now."

"Uh—sure. Why not? But this time can you tell me when you've switched?"

Edward gives him an apologetic, un-Edward little smile. "Sorry," he says. "We already did."

"Arno?"

"Yes."

It is no wonder these people are all insane, Dr. Wilkerson decides. Anyone would be, if they could spontaneously give their body to other people, or… turn themselves invisible, as Edward keeps seeming to.

"Well… what did you want to talk about?"

"Jacob," Arno says at once. "Because I'm… you can't tell right now, because I'm borrowing Edward's body, but I'm going to die soon. I'm… well, a very old man." He grimaces. "Edward, stop laughing. I'm sure you were old at some point." A pause. "No, actually, being killed young is not better than getting old." Another pause. "I am  _ not  _ wrinkly."

"Maybe you should just ignore him," Dr. Wilkerson suggests.

"Easy for you to say," Arno grumbles. "You can't see him." He takes a deep breath. "Okay, he says he's going to shut up now. We'll see how long that lasts."

"Talk fast."

Arno grins, but it's a quick expression that fades when he starts to speak. "Jacob," he says. "I don't know—you probably don't know him."

Dr. Wilkerson has never had to consider whether confidentiality applies to multiple people sharing the same body. "I've met him," he says at last.

"Oh," Arno says. "Good. That makes things easier, then. You know what he's like."

"I don't know him very well," Dr. Wilkerson says. "Why don't you tell me about him? In your own words."

"He's my best friend," Arno says. "Which… isn't really saying much. I lost someone important to me when I was young, and after that I closed myself off. I didn't let myself move past her, and my whole life has been just… empty. Except there was always Jacob. He's been in love with me since we were young, and I mean—it was hard at first, because he was  _ so  _ in love with me, I didn't know how to deal with it. But he backed off eventually. A little. But it's… funny. The less he told me he loved me, the more I could see it. Because he was always there. Always, always…" He trails off with a heavy sigh, and for a second Dr. Wilkerson can almost see the old man hiding in Edward's younger skin. "We raised a son together. Sort of. As well as any two people living in different centuries can raise a son. And now that I'm going to die, I wake every morning and I wonder if Jacob's going to visit me. And if he does, I think what if this is the last time? What if I never see him again after this? And I almost want to tell him something because there's a chance—a  _ chance _ —that when we die, we'll come here. To this time. Together. And that would be…"

He trails off. Dr. Wilkerson recognizes Arno's conflicted, half hopeful expression as the same one he'd seen a few minutes before on Jacob's. It's absurdly obvious, since they're both using Edward's face.

Arno lets out a breath. "Or I could just stay quiet. If we don't come back, what would be the point of telling him I lo…" Another breath. "What would be the point?"

"I can't tell you what to do," Dr. Wilkerson says. "Mostly because I'm starting to get the feeling that you… visitors have lives that are much more confusing than I've been led to believe. But from what little I know of Jacob, I think…" He hesitates, suddenly, feeling totally out of his depth. He hesitates too long, apparently.

"Gone," Edward announces.

Dr. Wilkerson pulls a face.

"What were you going to say, though?" Edward asks. "If he'd stayed longer, what would you have said?"

"I'm not sure," Dr. Wilkerson admits. "I know what I'd tell a friend, but it might not be professional enough to say to a patient."

"Alright then," Edward laughs. "Go on, I'm curious."

"They need to make out immediately."

Edward doubles over laughing, and Dr. Wilkerson does his best to regain some professionalism.

"And then have a long, serious discussion about what kind of relationship they want, if they come back, and if they don't. Communication is the key to any good relationship."

"Hear that, Arno?" Edward says, still laughing. "Go kiss Jacob's face off, then tell him you love him."

"He's still  _ here _ ?" Dr. Wilkerson demands.

Edward gives him a shit eating grin and then (to Dr. Wilkerson's extreme relief) the alarm on his phone goes off, announcing Edward's time is up. Who's up next—Connor? He's pretty sure it's Connor. He's going to have to stop scheduling multiple Kenways in a row, it's bad for  _ his  _ mental health.

"Alright," Edward says. "Alright, alright, my time's up, I know the drill." He heads for the door, and a few minutes later, Connor has taken his place. Connor wants to talk about his mother, which is such a refreshingly  _ normal  _ thing to hear after the Jacob/Arno relationship debacle that Dr. Wilkerson almost thanks him for it.

They're fifteen minutes in when Edward comes running in. "Don't tell anyone I told you about visiting," he says. "I'm supposed to stop spoiling things for people."

There's a moment of absolute silence.

"I don't know why I expected anything else," Connor says.

"Oh right," Edward mutters. "You're here. I'm just going to…" He gestures to the door and starts to back out. "I'll be leaving now."


	168. Chapter 168

Aveline has watched Shay struggle with Lisbon for a great many years now. It has left a shadow across his heart that never seems to fade—it is the only part of himself that he keeps private, the only part of himself that he cannot give to Aveline and Haytham. He keeps it locked away, deep inside himself, where it continues to torture him, even after all this time.

"You'll come in with me," Shay says, when they're sitting in Dr. Wilkerson's waiting room. "Won't you?"

"If you want me to," Aveline says.

"I'm going to talk about Lisbon," Shay says, only the way he says it, it almost sounds like a question.

"Yes you are," Aveline assures him. "This will help."

"I hate talking about it," Shay says.

"I know," Aveline says, kissing him on the cheek. "But Shay, you've been letting this tear you apart for far too long. It's time to let go."

Shay's session is due to start at 4:00—Haytham's had been at 3:00, and he nods at them on the way out. "Haytham," Shay says softly, stopping him in his tracks. "Come in with me?"

"If you want me to," Haytham says, looking startled. "But why?"

"He's going to talk about Lisbon," Aveline says.

"Ah," Haytham says. He turns around without missing a beat, and walks straight back into Dr. Wilkerson's office with the pair of them.

"We're just here for support," Aveline explains, when Dr. Wilkerson gives them a confused look.

"Well that's… unusual."

"There's not much about us that isn't," Aveline says proudly.

"That's absolutely true," Dr. Wilkerson says without hesitation. "So, Shay, what is it you wanted to talk about?"

"I killed 50,000 people once," Shay blurts, and then immediately closes his eyes, shaking, as the poor, confused therapist stares at him.

"Would you perhaps like to—er—elaborate on that, a bit?"

"I caused an earthquake," Shay says.

"That's not possible—"

"It is," Shay snaps. Aveline is sitting on his left side, with Haytham on his right—even with Shay between them, Aveline can see Haytham rubbing Shay's shoulder in small, comforting movements. It's a surprising show of affection, given there's someone else around, but then Lisbon has always been an extenuating circumstance.

"He's right," Haytham says. "I know I mentioned in one of my sessions the Piece of Eden that turned one of my sons into an eagle for a while."

"Uh—yes. And a wolf, if I remember correctly. And a bear."

"Of course. This is the same sort of technology."

"Well," Dr. Wilkerson says, in the voice of a man that has absolutely no idea what's going on. "I suppose I should have figured that out myself."

"I just touched it," Shay says. He's staring at the ground, apparently unaware of the side conversation "And the earthquake started. It was Lisbon. 1755. And I knew at the time that it was a disaster, I saw so many people die that day, but—I've been looking it up. There are better records now, people have gone back and figured out just how many people I killed—it's 40,000 in Lisbon itself. Another 10,000 in Morocco. Eighty five percent of the buildings were destroyed. The Royal Archives were burned in the fires afterward, along with the Library—thousands of books and records and paintings were lost as well. A whole, huge part of their culture, gone. The largest hospital in the city was destroyed as well, hundreds of patients were burned alive—"

He stops. Takes a breath. "And I did all that. All those people would have lived, if it wasn't for me. But I close my eyes and I  _ still  _ see them dying. I still see the ground opening up to swallow them, and sometimes I just can't stand the weight of what I've done—"

Aveline glances sideways at Haytham, and sees her own helpless misery reflected on his face. Both of them would do anything to take this weight from Shay, she knows that, but they  _ can't _ .

"I don't deserve forgiveness for this," Shay says, his voice cracking. "But I want it so badly. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to carry this around. I don't know what to do with it—I know it's not fair that I lived when so many people died. I don't deserve to live, but I also know dying wouldn't do any good. It won't bring anyone back, and it won't make anyone's life better. And there's nothing I can do to make up for what I did, there's no way to take any of that guilt away. I just have to live with what I've done and it's so  _ hard _ ."

Aveline does not listen very closely to what Dr. Wilkerson tells her husband in reply to this. She is too concerned with holding Shay, and offering him as much comfort as she possibly can. But it seems that whatever Dr. Wilkerson says serves to encourage Shay to open up—as the hour wears on, Aveline hears more details of the earthquake than she has in two lifetimes spent with Shay. Big, overwhelming impressions—the smell of the fires, the feeling of the ground giving way underneath him, the screams, the  _ screams _ … and then little details, as well. The body of a dead woman, head crushed by a fallen beam. A little boy crying in terror, before a panicked horse ran past and trampled him, and the crying just stopped. A man limping along, one leg twisted into uselessness, leaving a trail of blood behind him.

At the end of the hour, Dr. Wilkerson shakes his head. "I know you visitors have all done incredible things," he says. "But even by those standards, I have to say you're admirable, Shay."

"Not the reaction people normally have to genocide," Shay mutters.

"But you do know it wasn't your fault, don't you?" Dr. Wilkerson says. "I mean—unless I'm completely misunderstanding this piece of Eden thing, you didn't  _ want  _ this to happen. You didn't even know it would. It wasn't your fault—has no one ever told you that?"

"We've certainly tried," Haytham says. Shay smiles weakly.

Dr. Wilkerson shrugs. "It's like I said—I truly think that you're an admirable person. You lived through this terrible, traumatizing event, and you were able to move on and carve out a happy life for yourself in spite of that." He shakes his head in what seems to be genuine admiration.

"Thank you," Shay whispers. He's hunched between Aveline and Haytham, crying and trying to look like he's not. Perhaps Dr. Wilkerson senses this, because he stands up and moves to leave.

"This is my last session of the day," he says. "Feel free to take as much time as you need."

Aveline nods politely at him when Shay proves incapable of forming a response. Dr. Wilkerson heads out, leaving the three of them with their privacy.

For a long time, Shay simply cries. First with quiet, half hidden tears, but they morph quickly into loud, helpless sobs that shake their way through his whole body.

"Shay," Haytham whispers. "Shay, he  _ was  _ right. You're incredible, you're admirable—you're  _ amazing _ ."

"You've never stopped trying to make up for Lisbon," Aveline says. "I think that speaks more to the kind of man you are than the fact that you destroyed it in the first place. You never  _ meant  _ to do that."

"And what kind of man am I?" Shay asks.

Aveline kisses him. "The best kind," she promises.

He smiles uncertainly, and kisses her back—and then Haytham joins in, and by the time Dr. Wilkerson comes back in to see how they're doing, the three of them are crowded onto his tiny couch, somewhat less dressed than they had been before.

Dr. Wilkerson makes a horrified noise and turns around at once to face the wall. "Really?" he demands.  _ "Really?" _

"Really," Aveline says, perfectly cheerfully. She looks over at Shay, and he's smiling an awkward, embarrassed sort of smile, but it's so much better than his earlier sobbing that Aveline can't help but smile back at him.


	169. Chapter 169

Ezio chatters his way through six straight sessions. He smiles and laughs and casually flirts with Dr. Wilkerson (which would have seemed a lot more harmless back in what the therapist is starting to think of fondly as the Pre Couch Days). He tells wild, expansive stories that Dr. Wilkerson is pretty sure are made up. It can be hard to tell, with this group, but he thinks Ezio is probably exaggerating.

But the thing is, he keeps coming back. He doesn't have to—Altair had come once and then never returned. That's perfectly fine. Therapy is helpful for some people, but not for everyone. Dr. Wilkerson wouldn't have been surprised if Ezio stopped making appointments, or at least stopped showing up.

He keeps coming back. Week after week after week. And every week, he tells his stories and makes his jokes, and Dr. Wilkerson waits patiently to find out what he's really here for. It's coming.

On week six, about five minutes before Ezio's session is due to end, he leans forward slightly on his chair. "I've been trying to find a good way to say this," he says. "But I guess there's really—I mean, I'm just going to come out and say it, if you don't mind."

Dr. Wilkerson waves at him to continue.

"My father and brothers were killed when I was very young," Ezio says. "And I spent… a long time alone, after that. I mean, there were people around, but I didn't have a family, until it was almost too late. But then I married a beautiful, amazing woman. And we had two children together, and I barely got to know them before I died."

This is not the first time Dr. Wilkerson has heard a member of this group refer to their own death. He is trying to figure out the best way to tell these people that none of them are actually dead, and for now it seems more important to address the issue Ezio's apparently been putting off telling him.

"I miss my children," Ezio says, his normally cheerful voice breaking a little. "I had a family. I had peace. And I loved that life, I  _ loved  _ them. I know I have a sort of family here, but…"

For a moment, his composure breaks down entirely, and Dr. Wilkerson watches, surprised and helpless, as Ezio sobs. It lasts for—just a minute. Ezio struggles with such raw and honest grief that Dr. Wilkerson has the bizarre thought that this cannot be the same man that's sat on his couch cracking jokes for a month and a half.

By the time Dr. Wilkerson has gathered his thoughts and even started to  _ think  _ about a proper response, Ezio has composed himself and stood up to leave.

"Wait," Dr. Wilkerson says quickly. "We can discuss this—"

"No," Ezio says, very quickly. "My time's up."

And sure enough, when Dr. Wilkerson glances at the clock, it's 2:00 on the dot. "Did you time it like that on purpose?" he asks. "Don't you want to talk about what you're feeling?"

"I don't…" he hesitates, hand already on the doorknob. "I really don't know."

And then he's gone.


	170. Chapter 170

"Ade's going to talk to you today," Edward announces, before he's even sat down. "Like Jacob and Arno did, d'you remember?"

_ No, I've somehow forgotten the time two other men took over your body to talk about how they were in love with each other _ . Dr. Wilkerson very much  _ wants  _ to say this, but he is a professional, and he is determined to act professionally, no matter how badly these people test his resolve. "I do remember," he says instead. "Is Adewale in love with them too, or—"

"What? No, no definitely not." He's laughing. "Although thanks for that mental image, mate. He'd be so unhappy if he was suddenly in love with Jacob and Arno."

Like it's all that easy to keep track of the ridiculously convoluted relationships in this group. "Alright then," he says. "What  _ does  _ he want to talk to me about, then?"

"Oh, he doesn't want to talk to you," Edward says. "But I think he probably should."

"Um…"

Edward glowers at him, suddenly. Judging by the abruptness of that scowl, Dr. Wilkerson is fairly certain Edward isn't Edward anymore.

"So," he says. "I, er—understand you don't want to talk to me, but why is it that  _ Edward  _ wants you to talk to me?"

Ade continues to glare until suddenly he awkwardly elbows himself in the side.

"What was that?" Dr. Wilkerson asks, confused.

_ "Edward _ ," Ade says, in a tone Dr. Wilkerson is starting to know well. The I-am-one-thousand-percent-done-with-this tone.

"Oh."

"Fine," Ade says. " _ Fine,  _ Edward." His eyes swivel from an unremarkable patch of empty space, back to the therapist. "He wants me to talk to you because I'm having hallucinations."

"Oh!" Dr. Wilkerson says. "Well, tell me what kind of hallucinations you're having."

Ade gives him a deeply unhappy look, and starts counting off on his fingers. "Edward," he says. "As he's an old friend of mine that's been dead for years now. All this—" he sweeps one arm around the room. "Because it's not possible to travel into the future like this. You, of course, because you live in a future that doesn't even exist."

"Ah," Dr. Wilkerson mutters. Suddenly, he finds himself wishing for Jacob and Arno again. He can handle relationship troubles. Convincing a man that his hallucinations aren't really hallucinations, however—this sounds like it's going to be difficult.

Which is how Dr. Wilkerson comes to spend Edward's entire session trying to convince the invisible man that's stolen his body that he's not having a massive hallucination. He's not even surprised when it completely fails. At this point, Dr. Wilkerson is almost convinced that  _ he's  _ the one having a massive hallucination, and one day he'll just wake up in a mental ward and learn that none of these visitors even exist.

"I need a drink," Dr. Wilkerson says, when Edward announces that Ade's gone.

"I  _ knew _ there was a reason I liked you," Edward says cheerfully.


	171. Chapter 171

The room is quiet, today. Evie, in her borrowed skin (Desmond's skin) is sitting cross legged on his (her?) chair, rubbing at his-or-her head like he-or-she has a migraine. Dr. Wilkerson, for his part, is just trying to get over the strangeness of this latest possession. He can almost wrap his mind around Edward's revolving cast of body snatchers, because Edward is Edward and it's best not to expect him to ever make sense. But Desmond is… saner? More normal? No, those words don't really apply to  _ any  _ of the visitors.

But Desmond certainly doesn't seem to enjoy making people think he's insane, the way Dr. Wilkerson is half convinced Edward enjoys it. Somehow it all just seems more distracting today. Maybe it's just because Dr. Wilkerson is, ah—he is very interested in the technicalities of how a woman could possess a man's body. Isn't it at all uncomfortable for her? She doesn't seem to mind suddenly having an entirely different—um—set of parts, but it has to be strange—

"This was very sweet of you, Desmond," Evie says at last. He's— _ she's _ —looking at the second chair Dr. Wilkerson has started leaving out during visitor sessions. It just seems safest to assume that at some point someone will end up possessing someone else, and Edward's complained once or twice that when he's the possessee he doesn't have anywhere to sit. "But I don't think I feel comfortable talking to a stranger about this."

He ( _ she _ !) cocks Desmond's head, listening for a moment. "Alright," she finally says. "If you think it will help. And if… you don't mind me talking about Henry."

Whatever Desmond says makes her smile, and she turns back to Dr. Wilkerson. "Alright," she says. "Desmond says this will probably help, and I trust him, so I'm going to try it. My problem is that all my visitors keep telling me that I've apparently already lived through the part of my life I'm at now, but then a Piece of Eden made me forget the whole thing."

"I assume some kind of time travel must have been involved?" Dr. Wilkerson says. He forces himself to stop thinking about the complexities of body possessions, and tries to sound professional. "If you're living through it all again?"

"I suppose," Evie says, in a frosty tone. "I really don't remember any of it. The problem I have is that my visitors  _ do  _ remember, and they're insisting that I live my life now exactly the same way I did the first time around. Apparently, last time I was to marry a… coworker of mine."

"Henry?"

"Henry Green," Evie agrees. "But I'm…  _ not _ … not in love with him. I have no feelings for him at all, really."

She gives Dr. Wilkerson a look that practically dares him to disagree. He does not dare, even though her denial feels oddly unconvincing. "That must be very difficult for you," he says instead.

"It is," Evie agrees. "Particularly as I'm rather in love with Desmond." She blushes as she says this, but smiles too, and tilts her head up a little, as if in pride.  _ I dare you to tell me I'm wrong _ , that expression seems to say. "I don't know if I believe the others about whether or not I lost my memories. Maybe I did. I don't know. But it doesn't matter. I'm not that person anymore, if I ever was at all. I don't have to make all the same decisions."

Dr. Wilkerson laughs. "I don't know why you're talking to me about it," he says. "It seems like you have your mind made up already."

Evie looks surprised for half a moment, then nods. "Yes," she says. "I suppose I do."

She vanishes then—Dr. Wilkerson can tell because Desmond's face transitions abruptly from Evie's look of being confidently pleased to Desmond's expression of how-did-I-get-this-lucky?

"Evie's gone?" he asks, just to confirm.

Desmond nods.

And then it hits Dr. Wilkerson, and his eyes go wide. "I just had a conversation with a woman who might or might not have had part of her life erased," he says. "And the  _ only  _ reason I thought it was at all weird is because she was in your body. Nothing else about that bothered me."

Desmond gives a startled laugh. "We must be rubbing off on you," he says.

"You must be driving me  _ insane _ ," Dr. Wilkerson says, and he's not entirely sure if he's joking.


	172. Chapter 172

"You don't usually come in to see me," Dr. Wilkerson says when Aveline comes into his office. He looks to her like he hasn't been sleeping much lately. "What's gone wrong now?"

"Nothing," Aveline says. "Not with me, but Haytham and Shay have both mentioned you've been looking a little glum lately, and I thought I'd come see what's wrong with _you_."

"You know you have that backwards," Dr. Wilkerson says. "I'm the one that's supposed to be fixing all _your_ problems. Not the other way around."

Aveline frowns at this. "Don't be foolish," she says. "You're one of us—why wouldn't we be concerned when you're so obviously upset?"

He blinks, and shifts uncomfortably on his chair. "I'm one of you?" he echoes.

"You know as much about us as anyone else," Aveline says. "And having you to talk to has really made a difference—you've helped the people I care about, so as far as _I'm_ concerned, you're one of us."

"Do I _want_ to be one of you?" he asks, in a distant, puzzled voice. "Do you know— _I_ had to go talk to a therapist a little while ago?"

Aveline resists the temptation to say something about this being proof that Dr. Wilkerson really _is_ one of them. She isn't sure he'll think it's funny, though, so instead she asks, "How did that go?"

He makes a little noise that could have meant basically anything, but the look he gives her is absolute misery.

Aveline sighs. "Alright," she says. "I'm sorry that our problems have given _you_ problems."

"I've never had patients whose problems are contagious," Dr. Wilkerson tells her.

"I imagine it doesn't happen often."

"It doesn't happen _ever_!"

"Well, it won't be happening much longer," Aveline assures him.

"What," he says, with _excessive_ sarcasm. "Because all your problems are going to go away and you'll just start being normal?"

"I really doubt that," Aveline says. "No—I just meant we're leaving soon."

"Leaving?"

"We think Abstergo's caught wind of where our current safe house is," Aveline says. "So we'll spend the next couple of days packing and then—we'll move on. We won't be here anymore, so we won't be able to bother you."

He squints at Aveline with intensifying confusion. "But you're _leaving_?"

"Yes."

"You can't!" Dr. Wilkerson says, half jerking out of his chair. "Who's going to stop you all from going completely insane?"

"We did manage without you for several lifetimes," Aveline says, as kindly as she can.

"Sure," Dr. Wilkerson says. "But I have no idea _how!_ "

"I thought you'd be happy with the news," Aveline says.

"I…" he hesitates. "I should be. But…" Dr. Wilkerson groans and sits back in his chair, rubbing at his eyes. "You're all messing me up," he mutters. "That's the only possible explanation—you're messing me up, and if you just stop coming, I'll spend all my time worrying about you."

"That's… well, thank you."

"You can't leave now!"

Aveline gets up from her chair so she can sit on the couch (he gives her an absolutely horrified expression) closer to him, and sort of pat him on the shoulder a little. "Unfortunately, Abstergo is almost certainly going to be here in a day or two. We definitely don't want to stay here for them to find us."

"Well—yes…"

"Listen," Aveline says. "How about we arrange to continue the sessions online? I don't know if you've met Rebecca? But she's very good with computers, and I know she can set up a secure connection. Would that make you feel better?"

Dr. Wilkerson thinks this over.

"A bit," he mutters at last, in a very small voice.

"Good," Aveline says, standing and heading for the door. "I'll get Rebecca to tell me how to set up that connection, and then call you with the details."

And is it her imagination, or does Dr. Wilkerson look _significantly_ happier than he had when Aveline first walked in? She hums softly to herself as she leaves his office behind, and heads for home.


	173. Chapter 173

There are certain dangers, Evie thinks, to a little boy growing up with Jacob as an uncle. At five years old, James absolutely adores Jacob. Evie has lost track of the number of times she's had to stop him eating a bug, or jumping off something, or fighting with the other kids at school. Nothing Evie or Desmond say or do will convince him that this isn't impressing anyone (no, James, not even if you win the fight, and  _ especially  _ not if the bug is still alive). It doesn't help that Jacob keeps encouraging him, even after Jacob’s already been told off.

So it's lucky, maybe, that James has Haytham to be a good influence on him, and generally balance out the less child friendly elements of Jacob's personality.

Occasionally, it will just hit Evie all over again that she's trusting a templar grandmaster to be a better influence on her son than her own brother is. But he's also her father in law, and anyway he very genuinely cares for James. Not that Jacob doesn't, of course, but…

Haytham starts taking James on day long fishing excursions when James is three. He's a little young for the complexities of technique of fishing, and the few times that Evie accompanies them early on she's not surprised to see that James's fishing pole is really just a stick with a string tied around one end. But he's ecstatic that there are worms to play with (Evie is similarly ecstatic that Haytham keeps James from putting them in his mouth). Haytham admits to her once that he doesn't know any more about fishing than James does.

"I thought it might be good for him to spend some time sitting still," he says. "I know it's not exactly my place to decide that, but—"

"No," Evie says. "You're right, and if fishing gets him to stop running around for a little while, that's great."

At the moment, James is throwing pillows at Grace and shrieking with excitement as she gets progressively more annoyed.

The fishing trips go on for a couple of years. Finally, just after James turns five, he comes home to report that he's finally caught a fish all by himself. "You have to sit real quiet, Mommy," he informs her. "And use the bait that the fishies like best."

"And did you find a good one?" Evie asks.

"Yep! And then I catched a fishy, and Mommy it was  _ this  _ big!" He holds his hands out as wide as he can.

"Really?" Evie asks, playing along a little. "That's enormous." She glances at Haytham, who is on the other side of the room, smiling as James recounts his fishing adventure.

"I think it was even bigger than that," Haytham says. James beams, but when he looks away Haytham smiles at Evie and holds his fingers about four inches apart. Evie smothers a laugh.

"Where is this monster fish the two of you caught?" she asks James.

"We throwed it back," James says. "Silly Mommy, fishies need to be in water or they  _ die _ ."

"That's absolutely right," Evie says. "Well done, James." She hugs him until he starts to squirm, then lets go. James goes tearing off after Desmond to tell  _ him  _ about the giant fish he's caught.

-//-

Most times, when James goes fishing with Grandpa, they don't catch anything. That's okay. Neither one of them is very good at fishing yet, but Grandpa says that they're going to figure it out together and get lots better.

So for right now, while they sit on the pier by their fishing spot, rods dangling into the water, James talks to Grandpa (quietly, so they don't scare the fishies). They talk about lots of things, and sometimes James even likes that better than the fishing.

But then when they  _ do  _ catch a fishy, when James sees that all the hard work he and Grandpa did actually paid off, then he feels proud.

He  _ loves  _ fishing with Grandpa.


	174. Chapter 174

It's all gone wrong, and Connor isn't sure exactly how. This facility is important, possibly the most important one they've hit so far. This is where Abstergo keeps the majority of Pieces of Eden they intend to actually use one day. It's important to get those Pieces safely hidden away, and so every visitor-assassin (save Evie, who is not quite yet recovered from her C-section two months ago) is here tonight. They've gone over this plan time and time again, and it should have gone off without a hitch.

But none of the guards are where they should be. The alarms had been inconsistently active, occasionally even blaring out when no one is near them. This sends the guards running after the imagined threats, disrupting the assassins' plans and generally making life difficult.

" _ Damnit _ ," Jacob hisses in Connor's earpiece. "It's not my fault, I swear—"

"But your route down is blocked," Altair says.

"I'm sorry," Jacob says. He sounds genuinely apologetic, and unusually defeated—it's been a long night, and all of them are gradually losing hope.

"It's not your fault," Altair says. "None of us can get down, either." He sighs, and Connor can perfectly imagine the look on his face—frozen and stiff, trying to hide his bitter disappointment. They'd planned this for  _ months _ . Every one of them has an individual route down, backup after backup after backup. And every backup—ruined. "I don't like this. We're pulling out."

"No," Connor says. His route down had been one of the first to close off, half an hour ago, when a dozen guards came charging up his staircase to examine one of the malfunctioning alarms. But—it's clear now. The guards have moved on, running to some new, likely false, disaster. "I can get down."

"Don't," Altair says.

"I can do it," Connor insists.

"Not if the guards come back," Ezio says. "And there's no way to know what they're doing tonight. We can figure this out, come back for a second try…"

Connor tears his earpiece out and crushes it underfoot before heading down. These Pieces are too important to lose. There's no guarantee that there's going to be a second chance, and he's the only one with an opening.

He hurries, quick and quiet, down the staircase, along a hallway, around a corner, always keeping out of sight of the cameras. There are no guards, no sign of any kind of security. Part of Connor's mind is shouting a warning at him, but he ignores it. And then he rounds a corner, he gets within sight of the vault—

"Connor."

He goes stiff at once, and freezes. "Father."

For a moment they just stare at one another, down the length of the long hallway. Finally, Connor manages to speak. "You were the ones interrupting our plans. You and Shay and your templars."

"And you disrupted ours," his father says.

"You're taking the Pieces of Eden," Connor says.

"They're safest in templar hands."

"They're safest  _ destroyed _ ," Connor says, raising his voice a little. "Please. Can't we agree on that, at least?"

"And if they turn out to be useful, someday?" his father asks. "If they can do things like the artifacts that brought us here?"

"It's possible," Connor admits. "But they were  _ designed  _ to do terrible things, control people…" He takes a deep breath. "I can't let you have these Pieces."

"We already have them," his father says. "And I can't let you take them away."

Connor takes a deep breath, mind racing. There has to be some kind of compromise, some way out of this that ends with the Pieces gone and everyone alive. They've come this far together, as visitors. It can't just end like this, because they'd had the bad luck to go after the same target on the same night.

Something moves on the far end of the hallway, and Connor feels his eyes go wide, just a fraction, as he sees a guard round the corner, sees him raise a gun and point it not at him, but straight at Haytham.

He leaps at his father without thinking. In the fraction of a second it takes to reach his father and knock him to the ground, Connor sees Haytham tense, sees him ready his hidden blade, apparently expecting Connor to attack. And that hurts.

Somehow, it hurts more than the bullet that tears into his gut, more than the second that clips his leg, more than the floor when he falls and the back of his head slams into it, hard. He takes a breath, or tries to, but he can't feel anything, and he's not sure if his lungs are working, he's not sure if anything's working.

It won't be for long, though, and that makes up for the pain. Connor laughs, then winces—but even when the laughter fades there's still a smile stretched across his face. Something buzzes in his ears, voices, gunshots, the sound of fighting, but Connor doesn't have to care about any of it. Time passes—he doesn't know how much—and then his father crouches over him. Connor can see his mouth working, but he can't hear the words.

"I saved you," he whispers, eyes drifting closed. "This time I'm the one that dies, not—" he coughs, and tastes blood. "Not you." For the first time in decades, centuries, the weight of being his father's murderer is lifted off him. Maybe this doesn't exactly make up for that, but it's  _ enough _ . "I did good, dad. Didn't I?"

His vision goes dark, and he knows nothing more.

-//-

The second Haytham hears the first gunshot, he scrambles to his feet and goes charging down the hall. It's not a dignified approach, but his mind isn't working as quickly as his legs.

Behind him, he hears Connor give a grunt of pain, and then he hears him fall.

The guard gets two more shots off before Haytham is on him, and that is the last thing that man ever does. Haytham makes sure of it. He's blinded by rage, he wants to destroy this man who has killed his son, he wants to tear him limb from limb—

(but suddenly he remembers Connor's horrified protest when he'd walked in on Haytham beating Benjamin Church, centuries ago)

Haytham pulls back. The man dies, but quickly. It's more mercy than he deserves, but less than Connor would have given him.

Connor. Haytham turns around and goes running back to his son. His heart is breaking before he sees Connor's mangled, bleeding body, before he falls to his knees and presses his hands to the worst of Connor's wounds. "You cannot die, Connor," he snaps. "I will not allow this, do you hear me?"

He doesn't seem to. "…saved you," he whispers.

"I never asked you to," Haytham says. "That's not your job!" Damn it all, he's crying. "Remember when you hated me? Why couldn't you just… hate me again, just for a second? You could have hated me, instead of doing  _ this—" _

Connor mumbles something, too quiet for Haytham to hear. And that's not fair, he deserves to have his last words heard. Haytham had got a whole speech off when Connor killed him, and Connor can't even manage a full sentence.

As if he's reading his father's mind, Connor's gaze seems to sharpen, just a bit, for just a second. "I did good, dad," he says, and his voice is audible now, but it's small and… and Haytham remembers long ago visits with Ratonhnhaké:ton, before Ziio's death, and something about it had sounded just like this. "Didn't I?"

"You…"

But that's when Connor goes limp under Haytham's hands, and his whole world just ends. He turns to shout over his shoulder. "Shay!" he calls. " _ Shay! _ " He doesn't care who hears him, as long as Shay does.

Shay comes running out, and his eyes go wide. "Shit," he says. "I heard the guns, but I thought you had it under control—"

"I don't," Haytham snaps. He's never felt less in control. "Help me get him out of here. Leave the Pieces."

"Right," Shay says, and he hurries to Haytham's side. "Is he alive?"

"He has to be," Haytham says, because he can't believe in a world where Connor would die, would die for  _ him _ . Not because he doesn't believe his son capable of that, but because…

Because suddenly he understands. It's like the weight he's watched Connor drowning under for decades is suddenly strapped to his chest, and he can't stand it. He won't allow this to happen. This is a time full of miracles—Aveline had been shot and lived. Connor will live, Connor has to live.

-//-

He wakes up, and for a second sees nothing but darkness, and he thinks—this is it. This is true death. This is what happens when a person dies for real, when they aren't just transported into the future.

And then Connor realizes his eyes are closed, and feels a bit of a fool.

He opens them, and the pain comes crashing in. Everything hurts, but he's alive. And that's not fair. It's  _ not _ . He'd given his life for his father, and that makes them even. But if he's not dead, then they're not even, and Connor still hasn't washed that  _ guilt  _ off his soul…

"Connor," someone says, and when he manages to turn his head (even that hurts—Connor winces, then turns farther, inviting the pain in because he knows it's exactly what he deserves).

"No," he whispers.

It's his father, looking at him the way… the way he looks at Desmond, or Grace, the children that  _ deserve _ his love. Connor shuts his eyes as tight as he can, and refuses to say another word, even as his father pleads with him to look at him, say something, to just be alright.

Connor ignores him. He can't stop thinking of the moment when he'd been shot the moment he'd realized—apparently incorrectly—that he was going to die. For just a second he'd felt so…free.

And now the moment is gone, and the guilt, somehow, is even worse.


	175. Chapter 175

The room is quiet. Not merely the quiet of two people not speaking, but the absolute silence that comes from someone trying very hard not to speak. The therapist's room is small, and on this particular occasion it almost seems too small to hold the sheer, stifling power of the  _ silence _ .

Connor is the therapist's patient today. He looks withered and small—almost wasted, and he hunches over in his chair, studying his hands with a fierce intensity that the therapist seems reluctant to interrupt. But he finally does, after taking a considerable amount of time to gather his courage together. Even shriveled up like this, Connor is still an intimidating figure.

"You know that you can talk to me, don't you?" he says. "I already know most of the, ah—the weird  _ stuff _ you and your friends have been through. And I can't tell anyone else about it."

"This has nothing to do with visiting," Connor says. He doesn't look at the therapist as he says it. Doesn't move at all, really.

The therapist seems to be encouraged that he's spoken at all, however, and leans forward slightly. "Then what  _ is _ the problem?"

"I killed my father," Connor says. Just like that. No preamble, no emotion.

"Haytham?" the therapist asks, in obvious surprise.

"Yes."

"Recently? Because I spoke with him this morning—"

"No," Connor says. The word drops like a stone between the two of them, cutting the therapist off completely. "It was in our first lifetime. We fought. I killed him. It was wrong." For the first time since opening his mouth, Connor moves—folds further into himself, as if trying to shrink down to nothing. "I knew it was wrong," he says, and his voice is not exactly a whisper, just… quiet. "As soon as I'd done it, I  _ knew _ . But then it was too late to undo it."

"How did you kill him?" the therapist asks.

Connor looks up at him at last, levelling a hard, accusing stare at the therapist until he drops his own gaze. "Does it matter?" he asks.

"It might help you to talk about it."

Connor shifts uncomfortably, and his eyes drop back to his hands. "We fought."

"So you said."

"We were both hurt. But he was the one that died. We both already knew he would, because—well,  _ visiting _ ." He says this last word with a kind of sneering disdain that is completely at odds with everything he's said so far.

"You'd rather not be a visitor?"

Connor thinks this over before trying to reply. But eventually he says, "That's not exactly it. I met people through visiting that I never would have known otherwise, and I'm grateful for that. But I sometimes wish I hadn't been able to visit with people that lived at the same time as me. Or not with my father, at least. Maybe then he wouldn't have gone into that fight expecting to die. He might have fought harder, he might have killed me instead."

"And that would have been better?"

"Anything would be better," Connor says fervently. "Dying would be better than the guilt. Recently, I almost…"

Silence again, for nearly a quarter of an hour. The therapist seems to realize that Connor is struggling, because even as the quiet stretches out to almost ridiculous lengths, he doesn't push, or ask questions.

"I almost died to save him," Connor finally says. "I really thought I would. And I was… glad."

"You wanted to die?"

Connor nods a fraction, then shakes his head. "Not die, exactly," he says. "But he lost his life at my hands, he should want me dead in return! He should—" Connor buries his head in his hands and  _ groans _ , a strangled sound of pure emotion, as if all the feeling he's managed to keep from his voice so far is forcing itself from him now. "He wanted me to live, and I don't know why." He takes a breath. "When I thought I was going to die to save his life, I didn't feel guilty. It's been decades since I didn't have this… weight on me. I'd forgotten what it felt like, I  _ forgot _ what it's like not to have killed my father." He looks up, right at the therapist. "Don't ever kill your father," he says. "There's no guilt worse than that."

"I, ah—wasn't exactly planning on it. Connor, has it occurred to you that your father might have forgiven you?"

Connor stares at him blankly. "How could he? I  _ killed  _ him."

"Which gave him a second life," the therapist says. "A chance to live with his visitors, a relationship with two people he loves dearly, a daughter—"

"A son," Connor adds, bitterly. "One that won't kill him."

The therapist frowns. "Do you see Desmond as an attempt to replace you?" he asks.

"No," Connor says. "Never mind. It's great that they have each other. I'm happy for them. I ruined my chance at having a father when I killed him. Desmond won't do that. So… good for him, I guess."

"I don't think you've ruined anything," the therapist says. "From what I've seen, you're the only one putting this burden on yourself. None of your visitors blame you—"

"But they should," Connor says. "That's why… it's even more important I remember what I've done. Because none of them will."

He stands abruptly. "I'm sorry. I came here because… I don't know. I suppose I wanted that feeling back. From when I was dying, when I felt like I'd finally made up for the harm I'd done to my father. But I haven't done that, and I can't, not as long as I'm alive. I don't deserve that absolution."

" _ Connor _ —"

But he's already gone.


	176. Chapter 176

Lucy Thorne, Henry thinks glumly. Even Lucy Thorne would have been a less painful person to fall in love with than Evie Frye. There's just something about her that makes Henry feel like… well—he's never felt like this before. He has nothing to compare it to, but he thinks—

He thinks that  _ maybe _ , just maybe, he might be head over heels in love with her.

And she can't stand to look at him. There are times, rare and far between, when she seems to forget she's supposed to hate him. They'll spend hours in conversation, and then all of a sudden Evie will just shut off. She'll go cold and hard and make an excuse to leave at the first opportunity. And every other time they speak, Evie looks at him like something unpleasant she wants desperately to get rid of.

Henry can't help being smitten. He just is, he's absolutely, completely in love with her, and he knows he's never going to stop no matter how much she hates him. After a while, he starts going out of his way to just be in the same general area. He visits the train where Evie and Jacob have taken up residence, and just hangs around, talking to the Rooks and hoping for a glimpse of Evie.

But she's in her compartment, door shut, having a conversation with someone Henry can't quite hear.

"Who is she in there with?" he asks one of the Rooks. "Her brother?"

"No," the woman says. "Jacob's out somewhere. I didn't think  _ anyone  _ was in with Evie."

Henry frowns. Later, he manages a glimpse in at her. She's in the middle of an animated conversation with—no one. Henry thinks (just for a second) that she's mad. Except she doesn't look mad. She looks…beautiful.

Henry shakes his head sharply, scolding himself. But it's too late, he's too far gone, there's no way he can look at Evie's face and think ill of her. But if she's not mad—or if he's not willing to think of her as mad—then who is she talking to?

-//-

After Starrick's death, Evie's personality seems to change overnight. She's moody and depressed, uncertain about herself and apparently everything else. Henry allows himself to think that maybe she's starting to love him like he loves her.

"I think she does," Jacob says, looking unusually serious when Henry asks after Evie. "But I mean obviously she's still trying to sort out Desmond."

"Who?" Henry asks.

"Uh—" His eyes dart away from Henry’s. He seems to be looking past Henry, to something he can't see. " _ No _ ," he hisses. "I didn't  _ forget  _ he doesn't know about you guys."

“What?” Henry asks. 

“Sorry,” Jacob mutters. “Wasn't talking to you.”

"Who  _ were  _ you talking to?" Henry asks.

"No one," Jacob says. He changes the subject quickly, but Henry remembers Evie's conversation with no one, and files away these new scraps of information for later. Apparently, Jacob talks to these invisible people as well, there's more than one of them, and one is called Desmond.

Jacob clumsily changes the subject then, and Henry lets him.

-//-

Evie tells him about Desmond eventually. Or—she sort of does, anyway. She describes him vaguely as someone she used to be in a relationship with, and leaves it at that. Henry assures her that he doesn't care, as long as she's happy with  _ him  _ now. But he'd seen the look in her eyes when she talked about Desmond, and it's not—

It's not like Henry's  _ jealous  _ of some invisible person only Evie and Jacob can see. But this is the first time he really learns that these invisible people are important, somehow, in a way that Henry can never be a part of.

And he tucks away this understanding for later.

-//-

He never really learns anything more concrete about these strange, invisible people. But he eventually marries Evie, moves back to India with her, and has two beautiful daughters with her. She is the love of his life, but he knows there is  _ still  _ something she is holding back from him. Or someone. Someones.

But Henry picks up bits and pieces. They spend many decades together, and Henry thinks he is an intelligent man. Between Evie and Jacob, he picks up enough to form a rudimentary understanding of what the two of them call  _ visitors _ . He waits and waits for Evie to explain it all to him, but—she never does.

Sometimes it hurts him.

But most of the time, it doesn't even matter. He loves Evie and she loves him. They're raising a family together. Nothing else is important.

And then finally, when Henry is on his deathbed, Evie comes to him with her eyes red from crying. "Henry," she says (and his heart breaks to see her so sad). "Henry, there are things… many things… I should have—it's probably too late now, but I should have  _ told  _ you…"

He takes her hand in his, and squeezes with all the feeble strength left in his fading body, and tries to smile.  _ I know _ , he tries (and fails) to say.  _ I know, and it doesn't matter at all. _

He makes an effort and says "I love you," instead, and although the words are a faded, whispery croak, Henry is happy to let them be his last.


	177. Chapter 177

There are times when visiting can be unexpected, surprising, even exciting. When Marcello was a child, every single visit had been fun and amazing. They were secret adventures he could never have at home, with the best friends he cares for as fiercely as his parents or sister. Now that he's a little older, they've become… not routine, not exactly, and not _ordinary_ either, but they feel more like coming home now than going out on some adventure.

They happen more frequently now as well. Several times a week, sometimes daily. Marcello drops in on Darim most often, and he can't pretend to be upset about that. He likes Darim. Likes looking at Darim, in particular. He's fifteen, and just at the age where sex is absolutely the most interesting thing in the world. Or he imagines it would be. If he ever had the chance to actually try it. There's a girl that lives down the road from him in his own time, and Flavia's hinted more than once that she thinks said neighbor would be interested in Marcello.

He can't pretend he hasn't thought about it. Just to see if sex is actually as good as it seems like it should be, but then he'll visit Darim and think… nah. There's something about being around Darim (and his biceps, and his abs, and—all of him, really) that makes Marcello's insides do somersaults. When he finally gets to try sex, he wants to do it with someone that makes him feel like that.

But… not Darim. Because as this particular visit is (painfully) reminding Marcello, Darim is never, ever going to be over Rory. "It's just the worst thing," he's saying. He's _supposed_ to be doing his lessons, but he's more or less abandoned his math in favor of complaining to Marcello. "He didn't even break up with me because of _me_. He broke up with me so he could focus on Jeanne."

"Well…" Marcello is sitting cross legged on the table in front of Darim, because no one else can see him so clearly there's no reason not to. "She is his sister. Sisters make everything harder." He's really trying hard to focus on Darim's complaining, but it's not like this is the first time he's heard it. Rory is Darim's favorite topic of conversation.

Also his arms are very distracting, and therefore more interesting than another conversation about Rory.

"I wouldn't know," Darim says. "I don't have a sister." He gives a heartfelt sigh. "And I don't have Rory either…"

He trails off into gloomy silence, and Marcello lets it drag on for as long as he is physically capable of keeping still. Then he leans forward and squeezes Darim's bicep.

Darim frowns at him. "What was that for?"

"Just wanted to see what it felt like," Marcello says, and Darim rolls his eyes and shakes his head. Marcello can almost imagine the thought process going through Darim's mind, mentally dismissing the gesture because 'it's only _Marcello_ , he does weird stuff all the time, he's not someone you have to take seriously…'

Marcello would very much like to be taken seriously. Darim is absolutely one of the most beautiful people Marcello knows. He's got unbelievable muscles, and Marcello can't pretend like he doesn't sometimes lie in bed and think about what it would be like to be held in arms like that. And it's not like Darim's all just brawny muscles, he's an _assassin_ , he's agile and limber and Marcello can just imagine what all those highly trained reflexes would be able to do in bed.

He'd asked Rory, but Rory had just gotten angry and then sad, and then he'd yelled at Marcello for asking. So then he'd asked Elena, but apparently they hadn't had sex when they were together. That's what she'd said, anyway. And then _she'd_ yelled at Marcello for asking too.

Marcello just wants to have sex with the most attractive person he knows, and what's so wrong with that?

"You can let go now," Darim says, and Marcello realizes he's still hanging onto Darim's arm.

"Sorry," he mutters. Even though he's definitely not.

Darim goes back to talking about Rory, and Marcello goes back to thinking about Darim's muscles. Then he starts thinking about the time he'd dropped in on Darim naked. It's been ages, but Marcello has a very good imagination. Then he starts wondering if it's weird for him to be thinking about having sex with Darim when by all accounts his dad would be absolutely delighted with the chance to have sex with Darim's dad.

Finally, Darim runs out of steam and puts his head down on the table where Marcello is still sitting, resting on his (beautiful) arms. He gives Marcello a look of absolute, crushing misery, and says, "I'm so lonely." His voice wavers, and he just looks… lost.

Marcello would have to be a complete monster not to react to that. He reaches out, and this time grabs Darim's hand. Because sure, he'd climb into bed with Darim in a second if he asked, but that's not what Darim wants right now. He wants—needs—a friend.

They're visitors. Marcello can _absolutely_ be that friend.

The two of them stay like that, Marcello cross legged on the table, Darim slumped in lonely misery, for a very long time. Their clasped hands are the only point of contact between them, and Darim is holding tightly enough that Marcello can feel his visitor's pulse beating against his wrist, in counterpoint with his own. They stay there for so long that Marcello imagines he can feel their two pulses drawing together until they're beating as one, and they feel all the stronger for it.

"Thank you," Darim whispers eventually. His eyes meet Marcello's, and Marcello feels his pulse speed up, racing away from Darim's, at the sight of the honest gratitude in his friend's expression.

"Any time," he says.


	178. Chapter 178

Okay, so… Marcello really isn't good at this.

His palms are sweaty and his mouth is dry and his brain is unhelpfully throwing up very logical and well thought out arguments about why this can't work. He just stands frozen in place, watching Darim stare morosely out his window. He's sitting at his desk, arms folded up in front of him, head resting on top of them. Marcello thinks he might be crying.

The door opens, and Marcello jerks into sudden motion, scrambling away before anyone can walk into him. It's Altair, and Marcello stands a respectful few feet back from the centuries old assassin. Just because Marcello isn't a part of the brotherhood himself doesn't mean he can't appreciate everything Altair has done.

"Darim," Altair says carefully. "Are you well?"

Darim sits up, wiping his face quickly. "Dad," he says. "Y—" He catches sight of Marcello, and when their eyes meet, Marcello sees how absolutely miserable he is. "Yea. I'm fine."

Altair sits down nearby, obviously uncomfortable with this conversation. "Your mother and I are concerned about you," he says.

"You don't have to be," Darim says. "I'm just—I'm fine."

Altair looks unconvinced; Darim looks miserable. Marcello wants to stand up and bang their heads together until they talk to each other. But he's not really here, and the closest he could get would be to borrow Darim's body and head butt Altair. Since none of his visitors let their guards down around him anymore, that's not going to happen. Marcello contents himself with just watching as things go predictably badly and awkwardly.

"If you want to talk," Altair says, already on his feet again. "You should talk."

He sounds completely out of his depth as he makes the offer, and Marcello thinks how concerned he must be about Darim to be making it at all.

"I don't  _ need  _ to talk," Darim insists, and Marcello can tell by the look on Altair's face that he doesn't believe it either. But he leaves anyway, concern written all over his face, and Darim spins around to look at Marcello. "I'm not talking to you, either," he says. "There's nothing wrong, there's nothing—"

Marcello takes Darim by the hand and leads him carefully back to the bed. And—yep, being here on Darim's bed and holding Darim's hand is definitely doing things to Marcello that will be really awkward if Darim notices. It's sort of funny—he'd thought Elena was crazy when she started seeing Darim, but somewhere in the years since then he's had puberty happen to him and now everything is different. Darim is different, or—no, maybe Darim is exactly the same, and it's Marcello that's different. Either way, he can't look at his visitor anymore without seeing something there that makes his stomach flip and somersault. Luckily Darim doesn't seem particularly interested in what's going on with Marcello, or inside Marcello's pants. He's staring down at his lap, shoulders still shaking as he tries not to cry.

Marcello doesn't want Darim to cry.

"Hey," he says. "This is about Rory, isn't it? Jeanne told me he broke up with you."

Which… well, Marcello had gone into this conversation knowing  _ he really isn't good at this _ , but he hadn't expected Darim's crying to get worse. "Yea," he admits eventually. "Yea, he… he said it wasn't working, he said he needed to break up with me so he could have more time to be angry with Jeanne." Another sob bursts out of him as he tries to keep going. "What kind of stupid reason is that?"

"I don't—"

"Never mind," Darim says. "I don't want to talk about this with you again."

Marcello tries to pretend that doesn't hurt. But… "Again?" he echoes.

"You were there right after Rory left," Darim says. "Or an older you, anyway." He sighs. "You said you were in a relationship too, in the future. What's wrong with  _ me _ ? Everyone else gets to fall in love."

"I was with someone?" Marcello asks. And then, because his brain has apparently decided not to show up for this conversation, he says, "I hope it's you."

As soon as he says it, he regrets it. Darim goes stiff next to him, gives Marcello a look, and then edges away. "No," he says.

"Darim, I didn't mean it." He tries to smile, tries to look like he'd been making a joke. "I'm sorry."

But Darim only shakes his head, still not smiling. "You don't get it," he says. "You've never been with someone, been in love with someone, and then had them tell you it's not working, you're not worth it. We wouldn't work, Marcello. You'd just decide to move on eventually and you'd leave me behind. Just like Elena and Rory."

"I wouldn't!" Marcello insists. "God, Darim, I can't stand this—I can't stand being around you because it hurts so much not to be able to touch you. I can't stand being away from you because  _ then I'm not with you _ . And trust me, I never thought I'd fall in love with you either, but it happened and I can't undo it."

Darim doesn't answer right away. He shakes his head and turns so his back is to Marcello. And something in Marcello breaks at the denial. "No," Darim says. "Marcello,  _ no _ ! I'm tired of being hurt."

"I wouldn't hurt you," Marcello says. "I couldn't."

"Go away," Darim mutters, but that's another thing Marcello can't do. Even if he hadn't been visiting, if he had been free to get up and walk out of the room, he wouldn't have been able to. He doesn't move any closer to Darim (the way he wants to), but he doesn't shift away, either. He just settles in more comfortably, arms crossed over his chest.

"I'm not leaving," he says. "I'll be here for you whenever you need me, no matter what. I'll wait as long as it takes."


	179. Chapter 179

There's a certain thrill to just  _ surviving _ —

Because the truth is, Darim has never really been in a situation where he felt his life was in danger. Maybe it's pride speaking, maybe it's a natural consequence of being raised in a place where he is surrounded by weapons and assassins. But Darim has never really seen death as something to fear, he has never really thought that it might be something that might happen to him.

And then a mission goes wrong, and Darim is stranded, alone and injured, on the road back to Masyaf. His horse has run off, and he's trying not to think about the impossibility of traveling all the way home, alone. Right now he feels very small, and weak, and vulnerable. Darim sits—or falls, maybe—back against a tree, and lets his eyes fall closed. He's not ready to face the challenge of figuring out a way home, but he can't make his brain shut off so either, so it just whirls uselessly around in circles. He has money—maybe he can buy passage on a caravan. But then there are guards to watch out for, shady men that might not mind taking advantage of an injured traveler. But he can't steal a horse, not until he's healed. Maybe he could find a nearby village, and wait for his injury to get better on its own. That's probably the safest option, but it would take months to get home that way.

"Darim?"

He's so distracted by his own circling thoughts that he doesn't feel his visitor's arrival, and his first clue that he's not alone is Marcello's voice. Darim opens his eyes, squinting into the blinding, high noon sunlight. He feels awkward and uncomfortable around Marcello right now. Part of it is knowing Marcello is… attracted to him, interested, whatever. But part of it is… Darim knows Marcello has always been jealous of him, because Darim is going to be an assassin and Marcello is not. And here is Darim, injured and humiliated. It's wrong of him, maybe, to cling so tightly to that slight feeling of superiority.

But Darim sort of likes the admiration.

"What happened to you?" Marcello asks. He touches the deep, bloody gash running down Darim's leg, and it is clinical but still somehow gentle.

"I was—it's stupid, I got myself hurt."

Marcello nods, too focused on Darim's injury to ask questions about the accident, maybe. Whatever the reason, Darim chooses to take it as a blessing. "Will you let me take care of you?" he says instead.

"What," Darim says. "You? Do you know how?"

"Mostly," Marcello says. "I've read about it."

"But you've never actually—"

"Look," Marcello says. "You can either hobble on until you find a village or whatever and hope they have someone that knows about medicine, or you can take advantage of your smartest visitor being here, and let him help you."

"My most modest visitor too," Darim mutters.

"I'm serious, Darim," Marcello says. " _ Please  _ let me help you?" His hands hover uselessly, just over Darim's injury, but his eyes come up and for a long stretch the two of them just stare at each other. Darim is trying not to think too hard about Marcello liking him, or how he shouldn't be encouraging him…

"Please," Marcello says again.

Darim's gaze drops to his pack, resting on the ground beside him, and he nods. "I don't have any better choices," he says. "There's some stuff in my pack you might be able to use."

Marcello's hands are shaking just a little as he goes rummaging through the pack. "Maybe I'll never be your best choice," he says. "But I hope you know I'll always be here for you. I can wait."

Darim doesn't answer. He doesn't know what to say. Marcello goes to work on Darim's injury, hands steady now. His confidence seems to pick up as he works. Darim's injuries are bad, and before long Marcello's hands are bloody and Darim is half numb from the pain. After what feels like forever, Marcello moves onto sewing up the wound. Darim carries a needle and thin thread with him for exactly this purpose, along with the other first aid tools he'd offered Marcello, but suddenly he catches himself wishing he'd left them at home.

"Should I be gentler?" Marcello asks.

Darim nods, trying not to show Marcello quite how much it hurts.

And so Marcello does what he can to be gentle. He finishes the needlework as carefully as possible, then takes a cloth and starts wiping away the blood starting to cake there, just along the wound. His hands are soft, and the way he brushes against Darim's leg makes something churn inside him—hot and tight, like his insides are trying to squirm out of his chest.

There's just something about Marcello. About the way he's crouched in front of Darim, carefully tending to Darim's injured leg. It shouldn't do anything for Darim, especially as he's already decided he's not going to fall in love with Marcello, he's  _ not  _ going to get hurt again, the way Elena and Rory had hurt him.

Darim falls in love so easily, that's the problem. He loves  _ being in love _ , he loves the way it feels to care so deeply for a person that their happiness matters more than his own.

Marcello finishes wiping Darim's blood away, and looks up, into Darim's eyes. And he's so in love. He's so,  _ so  _ in love with Darim, and part of Darim—the hopelessly romantic part of him—revels in that love, he wants nothing more than to dive headfirst into loving Marcello  _ back _ . But that would be a bad idea. That would be inviting Marcello to abandon him as well, that would eventually lead to nothing but pain.

"Darim," Marcello says.

"Marcello—"

But then Marcello is gone, and Darim is left alone with his still injured leg and absolutely no idea what to do next.


	180. Chapter 180

Elena is used to her visitors taking her body to speak with their parents. Sometimes they even ask. But Darim rarely does that, and Elena isn't exactly sure why. She knows Darim loves Altair. She's seen them plenty of times on visits, and they seem as close as any other father and son. Closer than most, maybe. But when he comes to her on visits, he'll usually ask her to say hello to Altair, and receive a hello in response. Elena doesn't know why the two of them don't want to talk, or catch up.

Today is different. When he stumbles into existence at Elena's side, he grabs her arm in tight, squeezing fingers, and says, "Can I talk to him?"

"Are you okay?"

"Elena!" Darim says. "Please—I have to talk to my dad."

"Okay," she says. Gently as she can, she pulls his fingers off her arm. She thinks he might have left bruises. "Darim, is something wrong?"

"With me, maybe," Darim says. "I don't know, I don't understand, and I have to talk to my dad. Okay?" He gives Elena a desperate, pleading look. "He makes things better."

"But—you have your dad with you," Elena points out. "In your time. Why don't you just—"

"Elena!"

"Fine! Fine, come on. I think he's upstairs."

-//-

Altair sits on the floor, cross legged and still, facing his son. They have done this many times before, during lessons or just in conversation. Facing one another as equals. But something is different today. It's not just that Darim is wearing Elena's skin, Altair is somewhat used to that by now. It's… he's not acting like himself, and that worries Altair. For one thing, he should have said whatever he intends to say already, but he just sits there, silent and fidgeting. So far, he's only spoken to ask Elena to stand in the hall, out of earshot.

At last he speaks.

"I'm an idiot," he says. "I should just tell the you in my time that I'm a visitor. I'm so tired of lying to you. I'm so tired of—not being able to tell you the really important things…"

"Darim," Altair says. "You can tell me anything. We both know…" he sighs. "We both  _ know  _ you won't tell me you're a visitor before I die. But I am here now, and I know, and I am listening."

Darim smiles. Quick, instinctive, hollow. And he doesn't say anything, not for a long time. He seems to be thinking hard.

Eventually, Altair says, "Darim. I don't mean to push you, but I would hate for your visit to end before you tell me what has you upset. I would worry about you."

"Would you?"

"I always worry," Altair tells him. "But I would worry more."

"Alright," Darim says. "But it's stupid."

"I'm sure it isn't."

"I can't stop falling in love," Darim says. He says it quickly, like he's afraid he'll lose his nerve halfway through. Altair flinches and tries to hide it—he had never known Darim to fall in love, he hadn't noticed. He hates reminders like this that he had let a lifetime of secrets build up with the most important people in his life.

"It's like… I fall in love, and it's the best feeling in the world." Darim's gaze is fixed on Elena's left knee. "And then they…it ends. They stop feeling it before I do, I guess, and it's just like my heart getting ripped out, it hurts so much. But I just keep falling in love, again and again, and so I think—there must be something wrong with me, right? It's like I'm in a fight, and just standing there to let myself get hit again and again, and if I had an ounce of self preservation I'd stop falling in love—"

"No," Altair says. "Don't ever do that. Love…" He thinks of Maria. "It finds you when you least expect it, and fills your life whether you want it to or not. It is unreasonable to expect yourself to be able to resist that."

Darim smiles, crookedly but with at least slight sincerity. "Thanks," he says.

"Feeling any better?" Altair asks.

"A little," Darim says. "I still want to think, I guess."

"Do you mind if I ask… who—"

"It's a visitor," Darim says. "It's  _ always  _ a visitor. I can't imagine falling in love with someone who isn't a part of that." He takes a breath. "But there's nothing… wrong with me, right? For always falling in love, even though—even when it hurts me? Because it's driving me crazy and I really needed to talk to you…"

"Of course not," Altair says. "There's nothing wrong with you, and I would be far more concerned if you decided to give up on the chance of a lasting love because you've been hurt before."

Darim nods, carefully not looking at Altair. The whole conversation they've just had hangs in the air between them, something fragile and strange. Altair has never had a conversation like this with Darim before now. He doesn't exactly have the words, he is not quite comfortable with the conversation. But he is lucky because he has his visitors, and they are better at understanding all this than he is. Altair thinks he has picked up a thing or two from them.

Besides. He is more than willing to make the effort for Darim.

So Altair leans over to Darim, hugs him, and whispers, "There is nothing wrong with you.  _ Nothing _ ." Until at last, Darim seems to believe him


	181. Chapter 181

"Marcello?"

He doesn't answer. Doesn't look at Flavia. He's angry, and he can't even explain why. Because she's his sister but she's not a visitor and she wouldn't understand.

The thing is—they both  _ know  _ their father had been an assassin. Their mother had told them after he passed, explained it as best she could. And she'd made it very clear from the beginning that they were not to follow that path for themselves. It's not what their father wanted, she always says.

Well, what about what  _ they  _ want?

Marcello had grown up dreaming of swordfights and hidden blades. Flavia has always wanted to climb. When Marcello was younger and still in love with the idea of the assassins, with the adventure and the romance of it more than anything else, there were nights when he'd cry himself to sleep with the unfairness of it all. He knows he'll never be an assassin, because his visitors have told him. And anyway, there's always visits to Elena, and the danger of his father's disapproval.

So he'd known his life was going to be boring, he still remembers being five years old and  _ knowing  _ he'll never have what he wants. Most nights, Flavia would hear him crying and cuddle up in bed with him. The two of them would talk for hours, sometimes all night, about the legacy their father has left them and how badly they want that for themselves.

But then they'd grown up. Marcello had learned to accept his lot in life. He'd fallen in with books, which were… well, they weren't the brotherhood but they were their own kind of adventure. But Flavia—

She'd only gone and done it.

"Marcello," Flavia says again. Marcello very determinedly doesn't look at her, but he can still see her out of the corner of his eye, a blur of white through the tears he's trying not to spill.

"It's a good thing mom's dead," Marcello says. "She'd be horrified to see you like this."

Flavia flinches. Marcello still isn't looking, so he doesn't see, but he knows.

"And dad," he goes on. "Dad  _ specifically  _ didn't want us to be assassins, Flavia!" He can't stop himself this time, and looks up at her in her novice robes, the robes of an assassin. "He's—" going to be so mad when he hears about this. "Probably rolling in his grave."

Flavia's face is red, but her tone is calm and her back stays straight, unashamed. "They're dead," she says. "And that's awful, of course it is. I'd give anything to have both of them back. But they don't know everything. And I… need to do what's right for me. I didn't just decide this in a day, you know. I've been talking to Aunt Claudia about it for months, and she's helped me decide that… this is what I want."

"They'd still be mad," Marcello says.

"And what  _ else  _ was I supposed to do?" Flavia asks. "Marry myself off? Chain myself to a man for his money? I'd rather do this. And Marcello…"

He goes back to not looking at her, staring at the wall over her left shoulder instead.

"The brotherhood would have you, as well. If you wanted a part of it."

He can't. He  _ can't _ . He'd tricked Jacob into telling him his future when he was like  _ nine _ , he knows his future. He knows he'll live his whole life here, in Firenze, running a bookshop like his mother used to. Jacob had refused to give him any more details, but what she'd said is more than enough. Marcello knows his future is to be a moderately successful bookseller.

But Marcello has always wanted  _ more  _ than that. He wants what Flavia has. He wants to be an assassin.

"Fine," Flavia says when the silence stretches on. "Fine—if you don't want to talk to me, that's alright. But I'm riding to Roma at dawn tomorrow. I wanted to say goodbye before I go."

"Bye," Marcello mutters, still not looking at her.

Flavia snorts (but her expression is hurt) and storms away.

Marcello gives in then, lets himself cry. She's not coming back. It's safe enough to shed tears.

And that's when the  _ other  _ thing he wants but can't have appears in front of him.

"Marcello," Darim says. "Are you… what's wrong?"

"Flavia's joined the assassins," Marcello says. "And I've always wanted that.  _ Always _ . But I know that's not in my future. If I joined the brotherhood, I'd be creating a paradox, and I can't exactly do that, can I?"

"No," Darim says quietly. He sits down next to Marcello, so close that for now at least Marcello can pretend he cares.

"I wanted to be an assassin," Marcello says. "My whole life. I wanted to be like dad. Like… you. But I'll never even learn to wield a blade."

"Being an assassin…" Darim speaks slowly, considering his words. "It's not all swords and hidden blades and jumping off towers. It's…" He puts his hand on Marcello's chest, which is confusing. Under any other circumstances, Marcello would have melted from this kind of touch. But right now he's too miserable to really care. "It's what's in here. It's who you are, the way you care for the innocent and oppose injustice wherever you can. Marcello, you don't need a hidden blade strapped to your wrist to do that. You're a good person, I know you are."

"Not an assassin, though."

"No," Darim agrees. "But I think you're exactly who you're supposed to be, Marcello. You're the smartest person I know. You're funny—I mean, sometimes. Not when you're telling poop jokes."

"I don't do that," Marcello protests. "Anymore. Much." He's not sixteen anymore, after all.

Darim smiles. "You've always been here," he says. "You were there for me when Rory broke up with me. Or—that was in your future, I guess. So you will be. And I've been in love with two assassins already, but…" He takes a breath. "I've been thinking about it. A lot. I want more than _ just  _ the assassins in my life. You're like a breath of fresh air for me, Cello. And… and you said you'd wait for me. As long as it takes, you said."

That's about the point where Marcello realizes this is actually happening. Darim is actually leaning close to him, actually opening his mouth to kiss him. Marcello gasps, and his heart leaps in his chest like a bird taking flight, and nothing else matters.  _ Nothing _ .

He throws his arms around Darim and both of them go tumbling to the ground. The kiss is—it's a mess. It's Marcello trying to get as close to Darim as possible, and Darim half trying to get them off this ridiculous position on the floor and half moaning against his mouth as the kiss gets more passionate.

Darim is a far better kisser than Marcello—well, he's had practice—and his tongue is doing things to Marcello that he hadn't known were possible. When Darim slips a hand under Marcello's clothes, it's like lightning inside him—a burst of energy that turns his brain to mush and makes Marcello's hips jerk reflexively against Darim.

"W—wait." It takes three or four tries for Marcello to drag his mouth far enough away from Darim's to actually say something. "Are you sure about this? Because before… you didn't seem like you wanted me."

"I told you," Darim says, and his voice is low and soft, drilling all the way through Marcello to the deepest, most instinctual part of him. "I've been thinking."

"I'm never going to leave you," Marcello says. In this moment, he can't even imagine life without Darim. He's honestly having trouble imagining life without Darim's tongue in his mouth. "Never,  _ never _ —"

Darim kisses him again, and it's— _ oh _ , Marcello had never imagined Darim kissing this well. If he hadn't already been hopelessly, desperately in love with Darim, Marcello thinks this kiss would have done it for him.

Marcello's pants don't stay on much longer after that. He doesn't remember taking them off and he doesn't remember Darim losing his either, but he definitely remembers thinking that, well, if he can't  _ be  _ an assassin, at least he can have one inside him.

(And then  _ that  _ happens, and Marcello's brain just stops working altogether, there is nothing left inside him but a pure joy like he's never dreamed of)

After, when Marcello is curled up tight and small against Darim's side, he cries again. But he's not upset, he's not miserable like before. He isn't sure he has it in him to ever be miserable again. What does it matter, the kind of life he's going to have from here on out? He has Darim.

Darim waits patiently for Marcello to cry himself out, one hand stroking his hair, the other holding tight to his hand. When Marcello is finally calm again, Darim says, "Thank you for waiting."

"Thank you," Marcello says. "For changing your mind."

And the next week, when he visits Darim in his sixties and sees the look in his eyes, the  _ love _ , a lifetime's worth, Marcello knows he's finally on the right path. He won't ever have to disappoint Darim by leaving him, the way Elena and Rory had.

And Marcello won't ever have to be alone.

"This is all new for you," the older Darim says. Maybe he's looking at the expression of wonder Marcello can feel growing across his own face. Maybe he just knows Marcello better than Marcello knows himself, at this point. "Isn't it?"

"Very," Marcello says.

Darim kisses him. It's brief and chaste, nothing at all like the rough mess of a first kiss they'd shared in Marcello's room a week ago. But Marcello's mind is still swimming in the revelation that hey, apparently there are  _ good  _ things in his future too, and it's enough for now. "It only gets better from here," Darim says. "I promise."

“And you’re… you’re really okay with me?” Marcello asks. “I’m not an assassin, like Elena or Rory, I’m just… me.”

“I love you,” Darim says (Marcello’s heart  _ almost  _ stops beating). “And I love Elena and Rory as well, but… as visitors. Brothers. I’m grateful for the time I had with them, but I don’t know what I would do if I hadn’t eventually found the right visitor for me.”

“You mean… me?”

“Yes,” Darim assures him, half laughing.  _ “Yes.” _


	182. Chapter 182

Geraldine waits until the safehouse is almost empty before seeking Shaun out. She's not very good at asking for help, she'd much rather throw herself at a problem headfirst until she figures it out for herself. And most things—math and science and things like that—come easy for her, anyway. She doesn't have to work at them very hard.

But this is something she's never going to get on her own, so… asking for help it is.

Shaun is alone when she finds him, thank God. It's bad enough asking him for help, but Geraldine would have felt even weirder about asking him with anyone else around. That's why she'd waited for most of the others to go out before approaching him.

Geraldine slams her textbook onto the table next to him. "I'm failing history," she announces, face bright red. "Can you help me?"

He looks at her over his sandwich, surprised. "Why ask me?" he asks.

"You're a historian," Geraldine says. " _And_ you used to teach."

"Well, yea," Shaun says. "But I'm one of the few people living in this house that's never actually been to the past."

"So am I," Geraldine points out. "And—look, my parents’ stories about colonial America were great when I was in middle school, but I'm taking college prep classes now—" which is probably a waste of time, because she's going to be an assassin after high school, she's never going to get to go to college. "And they don't just want stories about what happened. I need to be able to draw connections and identify trends and compare and contrast and all sorts of big picture things. And I think that's something that's easier to do when you look at it from a historian's perspective, rather than as someone that was actually there."

"Well," Shaun says, with a satisfied little grin on his face. "It's nice to be appreciated."

"Does that mean you'll help me?" Geraldine asks hopefully. "I don't _like_ failing."

"Are you really doing that badly?" he asks, and Geraldine is surprised but not unhappy at the note of concern in his voice.

"I got a D on my last test," she admits. It feels like her face is burning. "I've never gotten a D on anything before."

"Well—" Shaun opens Geraldine's textbook and flips through it until he gets to the chapters she's highlighted and covered in post it notes. "That just means there's plenty of room to improve."

"Plenty," Geraldine agrees glumly. But she sits down next to Shaun, and lets him start walking her back through the material she hasn't understood well enough. It's nothing like listening to her parents reminisce about their first lifetimes. It's just the facts, please, and no … _interesting_ side stories about dressing up turkeys in assassin hoods, or fighting over who should clean the pigeon coop. This is the kind of history lesson she can deal with, this is exactly what she needs.

She gets a B on her next history test, which is better but not good _enough_ , and then she aces every exam after that. It helps that she has a very good teacher.


	183. Chapter 183

"I don't think you're being romantic enough," Ezio informs Desmond one day.

"Well, no," Desmond says, struggling to keep a squirming James from wriggling right out of his grasp. "I'm a little busy right now, and there's not much romance involved in feeding a month old baby."

"Obviously I didn't mean you should be romantic with James," Ezio says dismissively. He steps over to Desmond, and helps him secure the baby in his carrier—with only one arm, Desmond can't hold his son and feed him at the same time, so Ezio bites back his instinct to tease Desmond about strapping a baby to his chest. Instead, he sits in silence and watches Desmond coax an increasingly fussy James into taking his bottle. The baby sucks greedily for a while, until he starts to yawn and droop a little. Ezio shakes himself out of focusing on James and swings his attention back to Desmond.

"I'm just saying," he says. "You and Evie aren't even sleeping together anymore, are you?"

Desmond gives him a wary look, like he's not sure where Ezio is going with this. "We share a bed," he says cautiously.

"I meant sex," Ezio says.

"Of  _ course  _ you did," Desmond mutters. "Look, Ezio, my marriage is fine. But Evie and I don't have a lot of time or energy to spare for sex now that James is born."

"Sofia and I didn't stop when either of our children were born," Ezio says. "I think it helped a lot to keep us close. And it's not like it hurt the kids at all. They never even knew what we were doing."

"Of course they did," Elena says, as she passes through the kitchen. She stops long enough to snag a banana, and she's headed back out by the time Ezio calls out for her to wait.

"They didn't know what we were doing?" he asks urgently. "Did they?"

"Yea," Elena says. "I know Marcello did, anyway."

"But—look," Ezio protests. "One of your lot told him what was going on, right?"

"He heard some of the older kids talking about sex, so he looked it up in a book, and then he put two and two together and realized what you and his mother were always doing."

She shrugs, like it doesn't matter.

"He was ten when I died," Ezio protests. "He already had it figured out?"

"He's really smart," Elena says.

Ezio wavers a moment between agreeing with this, because of course he wants to be proud of his son, and protesting that he really didn't want his son to understand about sex before he was  _ ten _ .

"See?" Desmond says. "That's what  _ romance _ gets you."

"I'm just saying," Ezio insists. "I'm concerned you might not have enough love in your marriage."

At which point Elena turns and leaves (laughing, still), and Evie comes in through the door she'd left open.

"What's wrong?" she asks, face wrinkling slightly in worry when she takes in the scene in front of her. She seems focused on James, who by now has passed out on Desmond's chest, and she doesn't relax until he lets out a contented, baby sigh and snuggles closer to his father.

"Nothing's wrong," Desmond says. "Except Ezio thinks we don't love each other enough."

"Nonsense," Evie says briskly. She seems to dismiss the subject entirely, but Ezio watches as she and Desmond coo over James—as the pair of them talk quietly (not about themselves, but about their son)—as they stand close together, not quite touching but still, Ezio thinks,  _ close _ . To each other, and to James.

And, well… there are other ways of loving one another, Ezio decides. Less sex. More…

Desmond and Evie share a look. It is indescribable, somehow, but Ezio is fairly sure he'll never question Desmond's love for his wife.


	184. Chapter 184

"We could have a baby," Jacob tells Arno. It's two in the morning, and they're sitting in a tree across from the street from the place where they'd taken out their latest target (a high ranking Abstergo executive trying to bribe his way into political office). The police are there now, securing the scene and looking for suspects. They've set up roadblocks in every direction but it's dark and so far none of them has thought to look up and check the trees. So, for now, the two of them are better off hiding and waiting for everyone to clear out.

Arno frowns. He's suspicious of Jacob bringing this up suddenly.

"I mean, not  _ have  _ a baby," Jacob says hastily. "Just adopt. We couldn't really have a baby, not like Desmond and Evie had James—"

"Is that what's bringing this on all of a sudden?" Arno asks. "You haven't mentioned kids before now."

"Yea," Jacob admits. "I just see them with James, and it reminds me of when Edgar was that small. I hated it at the time, I thought I'd never figure out parenting. But now I miss him."

"So do I," Arno says. "But I think… not in a way that makes me want to have another kid with you. If that makes sense? I just don't want to feel like we're replacing Edgar."

"We wouldn't be," Jacob says.

"Not technically, and I know it works for Evie, she had her daughters and now she has James. And Shay and Aveline apparently had a whole litter of kids, but Geraldine and Grace aren't replacing them. But…"

"It's okay," Jacob says. "We're not them. What works for them isn't going to work for us."

Arno kicks at Jacob's ankles. "Who are you and what have you done with Jacob?" he teases. "He's never this mature."

"It's not  _ maturity _ to admit I miss my son," Jacob says. He looks startled. "Or that I'm not ready to replace him. It's just how I feel. So I agree with you, no kids. Don't worry, I'm not being mature, I'm really not."

"Then why did you bring it up if you didn't want them in the first place?"

"In case you wanted a baby," Jacob says. "I want you to be happy."

"I'm happy so long as you're happy."

Jacob grins. "I'm happy as long as we're kissing."

And that's how they come to spend the rest of the night cuddling and making out in a tree across the street from a crime scene.


	185. Chapter 185

Sage had been happy enough to agree to have Elena stay at his campus apartment for the weekend. Six years after meeting Desmond, and discovering that his dad's side of the family is complicated and most probably insane, he's pretty much gotten used to having a little sister. He's still sort of getting used to having a little brother, but then James is just shy of a year old, and Elena says she's still kind of getting used to him too.

But the point is, he'd agreed to have Elena over. She's done it once or twice before, and those had been nice weekends. Sage had shown her around his school, they'd watched a bunch of movies, and gotten to catch up a little on some of the brother-sister stuff that they've missed.

Sage is looking forward to another one of these weekends. Instead, when he goes down to the bus stop to meet Elena, he finds three girls waiting for him. Elena, of course, and then (Sage scrambles to remember their names—why are there  _ so many people  _ at that safe house?) Geraldine and Grace.

"Sage!" Elena cries when he's crossed the street to meet them. She jumps to her feet and hugs him tightly. "God, Sage, that bus ride was just the worst thing ever, we got stuck in traffic for like an hour and Grace almost threw up—"

"Did not!" Grace whines.

"It was only twenty six minutes," Geraldine says. "The traffic."

"Um—"  Sage hugs Elena back. "I'm glad you're here, but I thought it was going to be just you."

"Oh," Elena says. "Didn't Dad call?"

"Was he supposed to?"

"Sorry," Geraldine says. "It's my fault. I really wanted to see a college, and then Grace said she wanted to come if I came, so…"

"Dad said he would call and ask if it was okay," Elena says. "But James is teething and he cries all the time, Dad probably forgot. It is okay though, right? They're practically family."

"Sure," Sage says. "I guess. It'll be a little crowded in my apartment, but we can squeeze in."

All three girls light up with excitement at this, and somehow Sage ends up carrying most of their bags while they walk back to his apartment together. They're chattering away, talking about what they want to do while they're here, and Sage realizes he's not in for the quiet weekend he would have had if it was just him and Elena.

Turns out he's right. Grace—who is seven and still not used to being away from home—gets teary eyed and homesick on Friday night, and has to go to bed with Sage's cell phone right up against her ear, so she can hear her dad talking to her until she falls asleep. Saturday, Geraldine wakes them all up early and insists that Sage show them everything there is to see on campus.

"It's a  _ school _ ," she says (more than once). "That you get to  _ live  _ in?"

"Yep," Sage tells her (several times).

"We had a safe house that was a school once," Geraldine says. "But it was closed down and all empty. There weren't libraries and stuff like here, this is  _ amazing _ ."

They get pizza and watch movies that night until—well, Sage isn't sure when that ends. He's exhausted from playing tour guide all day, and he falls asleep while the girls are still bouncing off the walls and working their way through the pizza. When he wakes up, Geraldine and Grace are asleep together on the couch, and Elena is sitting crosslegged on Sage's kitchen counter. Sage yawns and stretches, half listening while he tries to wake himself up.

"No," Elena is saying. "Jenny—of course I like when you visit me. I wish you'd visit more, I love having long talks with you, and hanging out, and…Jenny, no, you're going to be okay, you won't be a prisoner forever."

Sage stays quiet while Elena comforts her visitor. She sounds like she's had some practice with this particular subject, and before long she's laughing. Sage can't hear Jenny's half of the conversation, but Elena sounds so cheerful that Sage feels safe assuming that Jenny is happier too. When the conversation cuts off abruptly, Sage gets up and joins Elena in his closet sized kitchen.

"You're lucky, you know," he tells Elena. "You and Dad."

"What? Why?"

"Your visitors," Sage says. "They're so… you're such good friends with all of them."

"I don't know what I'd do without them," Elena says. "They're like a little part of me, that's what visitors  _ do _ ."

"Not always," Sage says.

"Oh yea," Elena says. "I always forget you have visitors too. All the other sages, right?""

"Yea."

"What's that like?" Elena asks. Maybe she notices Sage's stony expression. "No good?"

"We're not really friends," Sage says. "Not like your group. I mean, when I was a kid, I remember they'd come see me, and they… they understood, you know? I always had this feeling like something was wrong, but I didn't understand until they told me about Juno. So these other sages would show up and tell me about her, and about how we were supposed to bring her back. How important it is. And I loved how they all understood me, I really did. But Juno's dead now. And she's dead because of Dad, so the others have decided not to visit me anymore."

"You guys can do that?" Elena asks.

Sage shrugs. "Sure," he says. "We can decide when and where and who we want to visit—that's a little different from how your visits work, I guess?" He waits for Elena to nod before going on. "Anyway. They've decided Juno dying is all my fault and I guess maybe I don't mind because she—she stole Dad's body, and she was kind of…" he drops his voice. He still can't bring himself to admit this out loud. "She was a bad person."

"Yes she was," Elena agrees. "You really don't get visits anymore?"

"Not often," Sage says. "Once in a while, but then it's all getting shouted at, or pushed around. John Standish—you remember him?" Elena nods again. "He gets really drunk every couple months and shows up on a visit to tell me what a scumbag I am…"

Elena hugs him. As tight as she can, it feels like. "I'm sorry your visitors suck," she says.

"I just want visitors like you have," Sage says. "I want  _ friends _ , you know? People that understand me…"

"I'm sorry," Elena says again. "I can't make your visitors any better, but if it helps—I mean, I can't give you visitors or friends or whatever, but I promise you'll always have a little sister that loves you a lot."

It does help, Sage decides as he hugs her back. It helps a lot.


	186. Chapter 186

Elena likes coloring with Altair; he's really calm and quiet all the time, and it makes her feel like she's visiting Darim. Altair is always teaching Darim stuff, so when he teaches her stuff, Elena feels a little bit like she's on a visit, even when she's not. So normally she tries really hard to pay attention to Altair, but today she's a little bit distracted.

Aveline is on the other side of the room, reading something on the computer. She keeps rubbing one hand over her stomach where the baby is, and it looks like she barely even knows she's doing it. Elena watches her—she sneaks little looks over at Aveline whenever Altair isn't looking at her, but eventually Altair notices she isn't paying attention.

"Elena," he says. "Do you want to finish this later?"

"Uh—" she nods a little. "Uh huh. Please?"

Altair starts picking up the crayons while Elena tip toes over to Aveline. But Aveline notices her anyway, and smiles, so Elena decides she's brave enough to point at Aveline's tummy and ask, "Can I feel the baby?"

"Of course you can," Aveline says, and Elena beams. She spends a few minutes with her hand pressed flat against Aveline's shirt, trying to feel the baby kick. Eventually she does—or thinks she does, it's harder to tell than Elena had expect. She drops her hand and sits down by Aveline.

"How much longer?" she asks.

"Until the baby is born?"

"Yea."

"Only about two or three more weeks, if everything goes as planned."

"That's a _forever_ ," Elena complains. "I can't wait two or three weeks!"

Aveline smiles at her. "You've waited almost nine months already," she says.

"Yea," Elena says. "But I don't wanna be the only kid here anymore. And I get to be the big sister, right?"

"Well…" Aveline isn't exactly smiling anymore. "You're not technically going to be a sister."

"I know," Elena says promptly. "But Rory said if the baby's a girl I can have her, because he doesn't want another sister." Aveline sighs. "And I'm not going to get a real brother or sister, because my mommy's not here."

"Well you tell Rory that he doesn't have a choice," Aveline says. "This baby is going to be his little brother or sister, no matter what."

"Oh," Elena says. "But… he said I could be the big sister for him. "

Aveline reaches over, and squeezes Elena's arm. "It doesn't matter if you're technically the big sister," she says. "I know you're a very good girl, Elena. And you're going to love this baby as much as the rest of us will."

Elena nods. "I'm going to make sure the baby doesn't jump down stuff and hurt itself like I did," she says. "And I'll let it play with my dolls, and tell it all about Rory and Jeanne."

"See?" Aveline says. "It doesn't matter if you're the big sister or not. This baby is going to be very lucky to have you around."

"And I still get to play with the baby?" Elena asks hopefully. "And help take care of it?"

"Of course you do."

-//-

Eighteen years later, long after Geraldine is born, and after Grace, and after Elena finally becomes a _real_ big sister, when James is born, she comes home late from a mission to find everyone else asleep. Elena tiptoes into the room she shares with Geraldine and Grace, moving as quietly as possible to keep from waking them up.

Elena has her own bed—it's nice being the oldest—but Geraldine and Grace are in bunk beds. Grace is curled up tight on her bed, but Geraldine is sort of sprawled out on top of a heap of textbooks and notes. She half opens her eyes and mumbles a _noooo_ when Elena starts gathering up her textbooks.

"No, 'Lena," she complains. "I have finals tomorrow, I have to study—"

"You have to sleep," Elena says. "You're going to ace all your tests anyway."

"No I'm _not_ …"

"You always do," Elena says. She finishes stacking Geraldine's textbooks, and turns back to Geraldine herself. For a second it looks like she's going to keep arguing, but—no. Her head hits the pillow, and all the fight just goes out of her.

"Thanks," she says, so quiet Elena almost misses it. "I'm tired…"

"That's what I'm here for," Elena says. "Goodnight, Geraldine."

But Geraldine is already out cold and snoring softly into her pillow. Elena smiles softly to herself as she heads for her own bed.


	187. Chapter 187

The first time Adewale meets Shay in person is not long after Shay becomes captain of the  _ Morrigan _ . So while Adewale is struggling with the (still fairly new) realization that visiting is real, that the young assassin in front of him is the same man Adewale had first met in the twenty first century, Shay is over the moon with a kind of fierce pride for his new ship. Two or three times, Adewale almost makes a comment about how Shay hadn't been this happy when Geraldine and Grace were born. Then he remembers that this would be a spoiler, and reflects sadly that visiting had been a lot less complicated when he didn't believe any of it was real.

Two or three days into his stay at Achilles' homestead (although when others come to visit him here, they call it Connor's homestead), Adewale heads down to the docks to see to his own ship. It's early, and he doesn't really expect many people to be around, but there's Shay.

He's standing a few paces back from the docks, anxiously surveying the  _ Morrigan _ , and doesn't notice Adewale. Even when he stops a foot or two away, Shay is so thoroughly captivated by his ship that he doesn't even turn around.

"Something wrong?" Adewale asks, and Shay half jumps out of his skin.

"Sorry," he says. "Wasn't paying much attention." He nods at the  _ Morrigan _ . "Just came down to make sure she's ready to sail this afternoon. But she's more than ready, isn't she? She's perfect."

"She is a beautiful ship," Adewale agrees. He'd have said as much even if the  _ Morrigan  _ had been an awkward fishing boat with a hole in her hull, just because Shay is so transcendentally happy with her. But she is a nice ship, as it happens. "I can see why you miss her so much."

"Miss her?" Shay asks, and his satisfied smile drops a fraction. "I haven't lost her—"

"No," Adewale says quickly. He'd been thinking of a conversation he'd had once with his visitor Shay, the older one who had sailed the  _ Morrigan  _ for many years, before giving her to his youngest son, and eventually leaving her for a century that has no respect for sailing ships. "It was a slip of the tongue, nothing more."

Shay relaxes visibly. "Was there something you needed?" he asks, half turning toward Adewale, away from the  _ Morrigan _ .

"I came to see to the  _ Experto Crede _ ," Adewale says, gesturing to his own ship.

Shay mumbles a few polite words, but Adewale has the idea that between the  _ Experto Crede  _ and the  _ Morrigan,  _ Shay prefers his own ship completely. "Am I keeping you from your work?" he asks. "Speaking to me when you could be elsewhere?"

"You remind me of an old captain of mine," Adewale says, after a pause. "Just as in love with the sea." It's true, oddly; he hadn't been thinking it until just now, but Shay seems just as fond of the  _ Morrigan  _ as Edward had been of the  _ Jackdaw _ .

Shay considers this. "I don't think I'm in love with the sea," he says at last. "At least… if I ever fall in love, I hope it's not like this. The sea can never love you back, can it? It's just something you have to cross. I like being there, but…" he shrugs. "No."

"My mistake," Adewale says, with a wry grin. "It's just; watching you look at the  _ Morrigan _ …"

"Oh, well—that's something different," Shay says, enthusiasm coloring his voice. "There's just something about being at a ship's wheel that makes you feel like you can do anything you put your mind to."

"Especially a ship like this one, I imagine."

Shay beams again, and Adewale makes a mental note to ask Aveline if she's ever felt like she's in competition with a ship.


	188. Chapter 188

Edward is only allowed to take James to the museum if Elena comes along to watch them. Usually Edward complains when he has a babysitter—usually James complains too—but this time Edward gets excited instead.

"That's perfect," he says. "I can show both of you at the same time."

Elena sighs. "There's a pirate exhibit there, isn't there?"

"Nope!" He's almost jumping up and down. James jumps up and down too, because jumping is fun.

"So what is it?" Elena asks, but Edward won't tell her no matter how much she asks. James doesn't care. He's having fun jumping.

They take a train to the city, and James sits on Edward's lap with his face pressed against the window so he can see the giant buildings and the crowds of people. "Can we live here someday?" he asks. "There's  _ lots  _ of people."

"Well, who knows?" Edward says, and James smiles real big.

The museum is big and crowded. Elena makes James hold her hand so he won't get lost. "Who's gonna hold Edward's hand?" he asks.

"No one," Elena says. "Edward's going to get distracted and wander off, and then he's going to call me and tell me where he is so we can go get him. Okay, Edward?"

"Yes, mum," Edward says, rolling his eyes. James laughs at him. "Hey, look!"

"See?" Elena says, squeezing James's hand. "He's already distracted."

"No!" Edward says. "No, this is what I wanted to show you two!" He takes off across the crowded museum floor, and so of course James wants to run too but Elena makes him walk. They catch up to Edward under the shadow of a huge dinosaur skeleton, which instantly rockets up James's mental list of  _ most awesome things in the whole world _ .

"It's a dinosaur," Elena says. "What's the big deal?"

"The big deal is it's a  _ dinosaur! _ " James whines.

"It's not just any dinosaur," Edward says. "This is the dinosaur your dad discovered."

"No he didn't," Elena says, while James's jaw drops. "I think Dad would have mentioned if he found a dinosaur."

"Okay fine, I mean he didn't find it himself," Edward says. "But I went and visited him once when he was just about James's age, and some people were right there digging up a dinosaur. And it was  _ this  _ dinosaur." He grins at the skeleton. “Her name is Sue.”

"We have the coolest Daddy ever," James says, in an almost whisper. "Right, Elena?"

She looks for a second like she's just going to keep arguing with Edward, but then she looks down at James and smiles a little bit. "Yea," she says. "Yea, we do."

"Edward," James says. "Can we take Daddy's dinosaur home with us?"

"I don't think it'll fit on the train," Edward says. "Sorry, James."

"Oh." He feels sad for a second, but then remembers he's standing in front of a dinosaur skeleton, and doesn't feel sad anymore because that's still  _ awesome _ .


	189. Chapter 189

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yesterday was the one year anniversary of Visitorverse. Yes, it really has been a year. :) So this chapter is in celebration of that--the italicized sections are quotes from the very first chapter of the original [Visitors](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4515243/chapters/10270113) fic.

_ Altaïr has paused to watch the novices training, newly a novice again himself. He’s debating whether to join them – humiliating, but in working on the basics he can show Al Mualim that he’s taking his demotion seriously – when he notices that someone is watching him. A young man. A stranger. He wears a hooded cloak of some sort, but not in the Assassin style. _

_ “Who are you?” Altaïr asks. _

"Daddy! It's Daddy!"

Evie smiles a little as James squirms forward on her lap. He must have heard Altair tell the story of his first, mystifying visit (with an equally confused Desmond) at least a dozen times by now. Judging by the look of rapt attention on his tiny face, he'd gladly hear it a dozen times more. Altair half smiles and goes on with the tale. Evie settles back more comfortably in her chair, pulling James just a little bit closer to her. She's glad James likes hearing about visiting. He's not a visitor himself, of course, but he's part of their lives, he's family. Evie is glad he'll grow up knowing their stories.

-//-

_ Shay is a promising young recruit Ezio has ‘visited’ a couple of times, during his training. Ezio has been looking forward to meeting him again, hoping to see him as a full-fledged Assassin at last. _

_ Their third meeting probably isn’t what either of them expected. _

_ “Shay?” Ezio asks. _

_ Shay is shaking. _

_ “I just escaped Lisbon,” he whispers. _

"Wait," Geraldine interrupts.

Ezio nods at her, pausing in his storytelling.

"I just…" she fiddles with her hair, nerves flipping through her stomach. "Is this going to be really bad? I know Papa doesn't like talking about Lisbon, so I sort of looked it up myself and it  _ sounds  _ bad, but…" Her stomach turns upside down again. She's twelve, and not quite ready to give up the idea that her parents are infallible, and strong enough for anything. But she wants to know.

Ezio considers this. "It is bad," he admits. "But of course it was only the beginning. Without Lisbon, I don't think your father would have ever been the man he is today."

"Then I want to know," Geraldine says. "Go on? Please?"

-//-

_ “Here’s the thing,” Edward says. “You want me to believe in your Creed myself? I don’t know if I’m there yet. But it meant a lot to a friend of mine.” _

_ “People come to the Creed for many reasons,” Ezio says. “That would not be the worst.” _

_ “Then maybe.” Edward picks up a stick from the shore, starts tracing patterns in the sand. “I’m running out of dreams. Might as well chase someone else’s for a while.” _

Edward stops his story there, and looks apologetically at Elena. "It's not a very good reason to become an assassin," he says. "But you asked, and there you are."

"Jacob's been asking," Elena explains. "She's thinking about joining the Brotherhood, but she's sort of having a hard time, you know? So then we were talking, and she asked why you joined, and I said I didn't know."

Edward smiles the crooked grin he uses when he's trying to hide how sad he is. "Tell her I joined because of her mother. Kidd's one of the best people I ever knew. She's someone worth following. She's  _ important. _ "

"I'll tell her," Elena promises.

-//-

_ “You’re one of the visitors,” he says, straining to keep the blade at bay. “Aren’t you?” _

_ “There will be time enough for questions once I cut your throat,” she says. _

_ Haytham wonders, fleetingly, what this must look like from the outside. Is he struggling to stab himself with his own hidden blade? _

_ An undignified death. He won’t have it. _

_ In one sudden movement he forces her away from him and drops his weight, flicking out both his hidden blades. He doesn’t know whether it’s possible to harm a visitor, rather than someone you’re visiting – her body isn’t physically here, is it? – but it seems the perfect opportunity to find out. _

_ But she disappears almost in the same moment. Planning to return for another attempt later on, he assumes. _

Grace tries very hard not to laugh, but really—poor Dad. "That's how you and Maman met?" she asks. "Really?"

He's very red. "I dimly remember visits with her when I was a child," he says. "But I suppose this was the first time we spoke as visitors."

"It's sort of romantic though," Grace says. "You start out trying to kill each other, and then you fall in love." She thinks about it for a minute. "How about Papa? When did you first meet him?"

"I'm not sure if that's really appropriate—"

" _ Please _ , Dad?"

He sighs. "He visited me."

"And…?"

"And… arrived naked and tied up on my bed."

Grace uses every ounce of self control she has to keep from bursting out laughing at how embarrassed he looks. Maybe other thirteen year olds would be grossed out by stories about their dads seeing each other naked, but Grace is used to hearing her parents thump and moan their way through very loud sex as often as they can. And she just keeps thinking about how her dad must have looked when he walked into his room and suddenly  _ bam _ , naked stranger.

His face had probably been about the same shade of red it is now, come to think of it.

-//-

_ “Surprise!” comes a shout above them, and Shay reacts almost without thinking; he twists, extending his hidden blade into the air to meet the stalker’s throat as she drops. _

_ Altaïr stands frowning down at her. “In my day,” he says, “shouting ‘surprise’ before an assassination attempt was strongly discouraged.” _

_ “In your day, maybe an Assassin was something worth being. Things change.” _

_ Altaïr is silent for a moment, then looks up at Shay. “You’re afraid you’ll have to kill your old brothers.” _

_ Shay hesitates, thinking of Hope, thinking of Liam. _

_ “Yes,” he admits. _

"And did you have to?" Geraldine asks her papa. She's just about to turn ten, and in this family, that means picking a side. Assassin or Templar. Not that Geraldine cares much. She doesn't believe in either side the way her parents do.

"I did," he says. He sounds very, very serious.

"I don't want to do that," Geraldine says. "What if—if I was a Templar, what if I had to kill Elena?"

Elena isn't like the adults; Geraldine knows she'll never have to worry about killing them, because they're about a million years better at being assassins and Templars than Geraldine will ever be. But Elena is only a few years older, and Geraldine doesn't want to hurt the person that's been like her older sister.

"I sincerely hope it wouldn't come to that," her papa says.

"But  _ maybe  _ it would," Geraldine says. "You never know." She sighs. "I guess I'll probably be an assassin, then."

Papa kisses her on the forehead. "Whatever feels right to you," he says, and it's nice because at least Papa's not mad at her for choosing the assassins, but it's also a little sad.  _ Neither  _ side feels right to Geraldine, what really feels right to her is going to school and being the smartest kid in the class. Where's  _ that  _ option?

-//-

_ “Don’t stare, Connor,” Haytham says. “And what have you done to your hair? Do you expect to pass unnoticed on the streets of New York? I hope you keep your hood up.” _

_ Connor looks away. _

_ “I killed you,” he says, quietly. _

_ There is a pause. _

_ “Right,” Haytham says. “Well, I can’t say I didn’t know you were an ungrateful—.” _

"Connor," Grace complains. "Can't you tell a different story?"

"It's a very important story," Connor says, and Grace rolls her eyes. She likes hearing about everyone's first lives, but Connor always seems stuck on that one stinky story.

"Dad says you want everyone to be mad at you for that because you're still mad at yourself," she reports.

"That's not—look, Grace, I did a very bad thing once, and I just don't deserve to have everyone forgive—"

"Tell the story about when you and Altair petted the sheep," Grace says. "Please?"

"Grace…"

She gives him the very best six year old puppy dog eyes she can manage, and eventually Connor gives in. "Alright," he says. "I suppose I can tell the sheep story."

-//-

_ Aveline doesn’t have to turn her head to know that Edward is there, leaning against the fence next to her and looking out over the workers. _

_ “Never had much taste for slaving,” he says. _

_ “Only the murder and looting, then?” she asks. _

_ “You’re an Assassin!” he protests. “Why are you Assassins all so bloody uptight about killing people?” _

James stops laughing when Aveline interrupts her story to frown sternly at him. "This isn't a joke, James," she says.

"But… it's a little funny," he says. "Right? Assassins that disapprove of killing? It's ironic."

"James," Aveline says, in her most dangerous voice.

"Sorry," he says, because he's fourteen and more than old enough to recognize that tone. "I blame Edward. He's a bad influence."

"He really, really is," Aveline says, shaking her head.  _ "Edward." _

-//-

_ “What is troubling you?” _

_ Desmond stares at the orb. _

_ “A lot of things,” he says, and then, “Shaun and Rebecca, I guess. They didn’t even say goodbye.” _

_ “Goodbyes are difficult,” Connor says. “They still care for you.” _

_ Desmond gives him a half-smile. “Thanks.” _

_ He lifts his hand above the orb. Hesitates. _

_ “It’s not even really a choice,” he says. “I mean, me versus the world? It’s just...” He shifts, uncomfortably. He’s so aware of every sensation, the rough denim of his jeans, the stillness of the air against his skin, now that he knows he’s about to lose it all. “I don’t want to die alone.” _

"That was Juno," Sage says. "You wouldn't have had to… I mean, you wouldn't have had to die if not for…" He trails off. It's still hard for him to think of Juno as an enemy. Harder still to think of Desmond as his dad. Maybe (hopefully) he'll get used to it someday, but for now this whole conversation is just… strange. Part of him wants to leap to Juno's defense, and the rest of him is firmly on his dad's side.

"Well, I didn't actually die," Desmond points out. "My visitors saved me."

"That must be nice," Sage says, quietly. He's barely seen his own visitors since Juno died. Most of them blame him. "To not be alone."

"You're not alone," Desmond says at once. "You have us."

_ Us  _ meaning Desmond and his visitors. "But I'm not one of your visitors," Sage says. "I'm not one of you—"

Desmond interrupts him with a cautious, awkward hug. "You're one of us," he says. "You're part of the story."

Sage thinks about fighting this for a second, but… no. He gives in. Smiles. "Thanks," he says. "It seems like a pretty good story to be a part of."

"The best," Desmond promises. "The absolute  _ best _ ."


	190. Chapter 190

Aveline is still new enough to visiting that when she finds herself suddenly in another place, it throws her. Only—no, this is the same place where she'd just been, that's why this is so confusing. She's still in her home, it just looks different now. The furniture has all been rearranged, and the light has shifted—it should be a dreary midwinter evening, but the sunlight streaming in through the open windows tells her it's summer, or perhaps late spring.

Who is she here to visit? Not herself, surely. Aveline is fairly certain that visiting doesn't work that way. Not that she's been doing it long enough to really be certain, but she's never heard of anyone visiting themselves. Ezio has certainly spent enough time complaining that he'll never get to kiss himself.

She shakes her head, puzzled, and looks around the room. There are two men here with her, too caught up in what looks like a tense, whispered argument to notice her. Well, there's that settled, at least. Aveline must be visiting one of them, and… yes. She smiles as she recognizes Shay. He has his back to her, but he's wearing his usual robes, and really—those shoulders. No one else has shoulders quite like Shay's.

"Shay," Aveline calls, but he ignores her. The older man looks up, however, and offers her a strained smile and a wait-one-minute gesture. Aveline nods, hesitant and confused. She edges around the pair, trying to get a clearer look at their faces. The older man half watches her, without taking his attention off the younger. Aveline studies them carefully, and after a while nods to herself. Despite the robes, and the great similarity between them, the younger man is not Shay—his eyes are too hard to belong to the young man Aveline has started to know through visiting.

So the older man—the one dressed in ordinary (if nice) clothes, the one who can see her—must be Shay. Well, of course. Nothing about visiting says she can't see him older like this. He's probably retired from the brotherhood himself, and has merely passed on his robes to a young assassin he's chosen to mentor. Or, given the resemblance between the two of them, a relative.

Aveline politely tries not to listen as Shay finishes his argument and sends the boy away. Then she says, smiling, "Am I interrupting something?"

"You're permitted to interrupt at any time," Shay says. "I know you can't control visits, any more than the rest of us can."

She half smiles. "Well, thank you for being so understanding."

Shay frowns at her. "Am I?" he says.

"What?"

"Being understanding," Shay says. "I thought you looked too young to know about that."

Aveline is starting to feel like she's missing out on something. It's like he's talking in code. "Never mind," she says, and changes the subject. "Who was it you were just arguing with? I mistook him for you at first, in those robes, and looking so similar."

Shay makes an annoyed sound, although Aveline doesn't get the impression he's annoyed at her. "Don't let him hear you saying that," he says. "Rory despises me. He'd hate knowing you thought he was me."

"There's not much chance of him hearing me," Aveline points out. "If he's not a visitor, he can't see me."

Shay doesn't answer; only heaves a sigh and sinks into a chair. Aveline can't help noticing that it's her favorite chair, and wonders again what Shay is doing here. It doesn't seem like the time to ask, somehow.

"I don't know what I'm doing," he says. "I don't  _ know _ ."

"You'll figure it out," Aveline says. "He can't dislike you as much as you think—he's wearing your robes, isn't he? He wouldn't do that if he wasn't "

Shay gives her a look of pure misery, but Aveline's visit ends before she has time to question it.


	191. Chapter 191

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, it's another one year anniversary! This time it's the anniversary of Salanaland's first post in visitorverse. So Salanaland, this is for you; it's not quite the same as Riona's visitorversary chapter, obviously, that'd be boring, but I hope you like it anyway.

It's a quiet, frigid day in late November, and Haytham is somewhere in rural Nebraska with Shay. Nothing but farmland and tiny towns for miles and miles around, which is not Haytham's idea of an ideal place to be stranded for the weekend. But they'd been on their way back to the safehouse after a weeklong mission when a snowstorm rolled in. Nothing too bad, but they'd agreed it would be best to find somewhere to wait it out rather than risk continuing along the highway during the storm.

At least they'd found a hotel room. It smells slightly musty, and Haytham is trying hard not to think about how often the room gets cleaned. It's harder now that he's alone—the man that checked them in had mentioned a grocery store a few blocks away, and Shay had gone to make sure they'll have supplies in case the snow gets worse. Snow doesn't mean as much in this century as it had in their original time. A snowplow can clear a road in minutes that might have taken hours or days of labor by hand. There's no real reason to expect they'll be snowed in, but… better safe than sorry.

Haytham paces the room for a while, impatient for Shay to return and, hopefully, distract him from the less than ideal room they're staying in. But Shay takes his time. Haytham goes to the window, but the sight of the snow gathering on the roads below depresses him. He calls Aveline, and for a little while he's distracted as she tells him about Grace. Curiously, she sounds like she's working up to saying something, but then Grace starts crying in the background, and Aveline says a quick goodbye before going to comfort the three month old.

Which leaves Haytham alone again. He's just starting to get bored enough to actually consider finding something stupid to watch on TV when Shay finally returns. He's red cheeked, covered in a thin dusting of snow, and carrying a bag full of enough food to last them a few days. He smiles at Haytham in greeting, and starts peeling off layers as Haytham goes through the bag of groceries.

He doesn't suspect anything when he finds the condoms. As impossible as it might once have seemed, he's gotten used to frequent sex. Expect it, even.

And he doesn't suspect anything when he finds the chocolates, either. He and Shay have been lovers for a while now, and friends for a lot longer than that. By now, Haytham is certain that Shay knows his fondness for chocolates. It will be something to brighten their time stuck here, anyway.

But then he looks up and sees Shay holding a bouquet of (very slightly brown) flowers, and _then_ he suspects that something is happening.

"Shay?" he says, cautiously.

"They're from Aveline," he says. "Or—she asked me to get them, anyway. Since she couldn't be here tonight." He half shrugs. "I know you're not particularly interested in flowers, but…" he sighs, and wilts a little. "We had _plans_ for tonight," he says, a bit petulantly. "It was supposed to be a surprise. But then the mission went long, and the snow came in, and—well, here we are."

Haytham takes the flowers numbly. Shay seems to be offering them. "I don't understand," he says. "What was the surprise _for_?"

Shay gives him a look. "For you," he says.

"But why?"

"You… you _do_ know what day it is," Shay says. But he suddenly sounds uncertain. "Don't you?"

"I know the date," Haytham says.

"No, but…" Shay half smiles, like he's still trying to convince himself that Haytham is joking. The smile fades. "You really don't remember?"

Haytham shakes his head.

"It's our anniversary."

No it isn't. Haytham knows every possible date that Shay might consider an anniversary. He knows the day he and Aveline had first kissed. The day they'd married. The day they'd renewed their vows. None of those days are today.

Shay takes pity on Haytham's confusion. He steps forward, and kisses Haytham gently. " _Our_ anniversary," he says. "Yours and mine and Aveline's."

"We don't _have_ an anniversary," Haytham says, confusion mounting.

"We do," Shay insists stubbornly. "A year ago, you came back to the safehouse, and the three of us were together for the first time in this life. We've been together ever since, and if that doesn't warrant an anniversary celebration, I don't know what does."

"Shay," Haytham says. "No—you and Aveline are married, I'm just… I don't…" He struggles. "I don't know exactly what I am, but… you shouldn't have done this, Shay—"

"Haytham," Shay says.

"Shay, no…"

" _Look_ at me, Haytham."

Their eyes meet. Haytham almost flinches away from the intensity of Shay's expression (because he doesn't want to hear this, does he? Doesn't want to run the risk of believing it). But there is such a depth of honest affection and… and love in his eyes that Haytham finds himself mesmerized, utterly unable to look away. "It may be unconventional," he says. "But you are as much a part of this relationship as Aveline and I are."

"You're husband and wife—"

"Well it's not exactly legal for three people to marry," Shay says. "Not even in this century."

"And you were together when I couldn't even admit to myself that I cared for either of you—"

"Haytham, it doesn't _matter_ ," Shay says. "Not at all. We're together now. We've been together an entire year, and that's worth celebrating."

Haytham wavers. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," Shay says. "And so is Aveline."

"Will she be upset if we… celebrate without her?"

"Oh, you know Aveline," Shay says. "She'll just insist we celebrate again when we get home."

Haytham nods. This is true. "In that case," he says. "Happy Anniversary."

And neither of them says anything else for a while after that. They're a bit preoccupied.


	192. Chapter 192

It's chilly inside the school cafeteria, probably because it's  _freezing_ outside, but James is sweating anyway, and his insides feel like an erupting volcano.

"Come on, James!" one of the older boys calls. "What are you waiting for?"

He slaps on a cocky grin that he thinks Uncle Jacob probably would have been proud of, and says, "I’ll do it, don't worry.”

"He's not going to," a second boy scoffs. "Too scared, I bet."

"I'm not scared of anything!" James almost  _ shouts _ back at him. This makes the other boys laugh, which is exactly the opposite reaction from what he'd wanted.

"Go on, then," says the first boy, giving him a little shove. "Prove it!"

James stumbles a step, but recovers before the others can start laughing at him. Then he surveys the cafeteria around them with a kind of heavy glumness. He'd been lying a little when he said he wasn't scared of anything, and one of the things that definitely terrifies him is the thought of what his mom will say if— _ when _ —she finds out he's streaking across the school cafeteria on a dare.

He hears more snickering from behind him, and something clicks. Suddenly, James is very desperate to be on the other side of that laughter, to just be part of the group instead of the person the group is laughing at.

It's worth getting into a little bit of trouble to have friends for once, isn't it?

-//-

They've only been in this safehouse for a week and a half when Desmond gets the call from James's principal, informing him that his son has just stripped off and run naked through the school's cafeteria.

"Er—" Desmond half shifts away from where Evie is sitting on the other side of the room, studying the plans for their next mission. "Are you sure?"

"Fairly sure, yes," the man says, with almost Shaun levels of sarcasm. "I've been in this job long enough to be able to tell when a student isn't wearing pants."

"Right," Desmond says. "Sure, of course. Yea. But, um…"

"If possible," the principal says, "we'd like to have a family member come pick him up as soon as possible. He'll certainly be facing suspension for the rest of the week, and I'll be speaking with his teachers to decide if there should be further disciplinary action after that."

"Oh," Desmond says. "Sure. I can be there in a few minutes."

The principal hangs up without so much as a goodbye, and Desmond turns back to Evie, bracing himself for Evie's reaction. "I have to go pick James up from school," he announces.

She half turns to the clock on the desk, then frowns. "It's only noon," she says. "Is he alright? Was that the school?"

"It was the school," Desmond agrees. "And he's… fine, but…"

"But?"

"Apparently he was running around without clothes on," Desmond says, all in a rush.

Evie's face darkens. "Why?" she demands.

Desmond shrugs helplessly, and sits down on the edge of the bed closest to her. "I guess we'll have to ask him when I get him home," he says.

"He's twelve," Evie says. "That's too old to be doing things like this."

"I know," Desmond says. "And I agree. But he's never  _ done  _ anything like this before, and I'm worried."

He can see by the little shift of her features, the way the hard line of her frown softens a little, that Evie is worried too. "He's never really been happy," she says softly. "Not since he was small and we almost lost Haytham to the animus. That was hard for him, and he never really came back from it."

"Let's make sure the three of us have time to sit down together and talk about it this week," Desmond says. "We can figure out what to do after that."

"Oh,  _ James _ ," Evie sighs, shaking her head.

-//-

They're only three blocks from James's middle school, so Desmond walks. He's buzzed in through the main doors, then has to endure a lengthy lecture from the principal, complete with the occasional disparaging remark about his parenting skills, along with a comment or two about James's maturity.

Desmond catches himself wishing the man worked for Abstergo. He sort of wants to hit him.

Finally, after Desmond has signed half a dozen forms and handed over his contact information, he's pointed to the empty office where James has (apparently) been left to stew. Desmond crosses his fingers that James will be dressed when he goes in, and to his relief James is in fact wearing pants and a T-shirt. He's also been crying, and there are fresh tear tracks on his face when he looks up at Desmond.

"They said they'd be friends with me," he says, trying to wipe his tear stained face without being obvious about it. "But they laughed more than  _ anyone _ ."

He makes a fresh, hiccupping sob, and Desmond sits down on the uncomfortable chair next to James's. He puts his good arm out, and James burrows obligingly underneath, like he had when he was little and still needed Desmond and Evie for everything.

Desmond tries to think of something appropriately wise and fatherly to say, but he still doesn't know the full story, and he's a bit distracted by the feeling of James shaking next to him.

"Anyone that makes you take your pants off to be your friend," he says, "isn't worth being friends with in the first place."

It's not as wise sounding as Desmond would have liked. It's not the advice he goes to Haytham for when he's just… confused about life. But it makes James laugh. He hugs Desmond tighter.

"Is mom going to kill me?" he asks.

"Definitely not," Desmond assures him. "But we do have to go home, and I do want you to tell both of us exactly what happened here."

"Okay," James whispers. Then he sighs, all traces of laughter gone from his face. "They said they'd be my friends," he repeats. "Why can't I ever just make a  _ friend _ ?"

Desmond sighs, and shakes his head, and James keeps his face pressed up against Desmond's side all the way home.


	193. Chapter 193

Grace likes the way dressing for the party makes her feel like a different person—for tonight, at least, she really will have to be someone else. Grace Kenway doesn't have an invitation, but Emelia Duerr—an alias Grace has been cultivating for nearly a year now—had made the cut without even trying. To be honest, Grace hadn't even been considering attending, until one of her fathers pointed out who else would be in attendance.

Everyone, essentially. Everyone who is anyone, it seems, will be at this party, and that includes the reclusive Abstergo executive Grace has spent over a year now trying to get close to. Anthony Stanton, an ex-engineer who had done more than his fair share to turn Abstergo away from the true cause of the Order. They need the old man forced out of the company, preferably in as embarrassing and public a manner as possible. It sends a powerful message to the Abstergo goons the templars haven't gotten to yet.

So if he's going to be at this party, then Grace will be as well. And she'll get him to trust her—she's gotten quite good at that by now. Besides, she's nineteen and pretty, and that's always helpful when dealing with people like Stanton. After that—well, after the party is the fun part. He's a lonely old man suddenly receiving the attentions of a much younger woman—of course he'll want to keep in contact with her.

Which will give Grace the time she needs to get to know him, to figure out the best way to bring him down. He's taken enough from the order as he twisted it into something base, something designed primarily to line the pockets of him and his friends. Now the true templars finally have the chance to take everything back.

But first—this party.

It takes Grace hours to get ready. She agonizes over what dress to wear, and which earrings to pair with it, and how much makeup to wear in order to attract the attention of a man of Stanton's age. If this wasn't official templar business, she'd ask her mother, but she can't. That's just not how things are done in this family—she can't talk to her mother or her sister about anything related to the templars, not even something as relatively harmless as dressing for a party. It's sad, but—there it is.

She heads out, and her dad genuinely looks like he's about to have a heart attack when he sees the way she's dressed. "Sometimes I wish we were an ordinary family," he grumbles. "If I didn't know you were dressed like that for a good reason, I'd absolutely forbid you from leaving the house in that skirt."

"Well I guess that means I did my job," Grace says.

"Too well," her dad complains. "Be careful tonight, alright?"

"I'll be fine," Grace assures him.

He does not look entirely convinced, but he's her dad and he has the right to be worried about her as much as he wants. So Grace gives him a kiss on the cheek and heads out, into the night.

-//-

She arrives at the club where the party is taking place before Stanton does, and starts moving around the room, making small talk and smiling at all the right people. The room is full of Very Important People, politicians and billionaires and an heiress or two. Grace doesn't belong here, but this is exactly the reason she invented Emelia in the first place. Rich parents, never worked a day in her life, looking for an available man to attach herself to.  _ Emelia  _ belongs here, and when Grace starts to feel overwhelmed she closes her eyes and tries to force herself into Emelia's haughty way of thinking.

It works. Grace calms down, and the socializing gets easier. She's just spotted Stanton arriving on the other side of the massive party room, when someone grabs her arm. Grace tenses, but it's nobody dangerous—a blonde girl in a size zero dress. She looks like she might blow over in a strong draft, she's so tiny, and Grace vaguely remembers meeting her once or twice before. She doesn't remember the girl's name, but she doesn't want to cause a scene (not  _ now _ , not after all this planning) so she nods and smiles as the girl spouts meaningless gossip about the other people at the party.

"And you  _ have  _ to meet Isabelle," the girl says, dragging Grace toward a corner of the room. She casts a desperate glance toward the spot where she'd last seen Stanton, but he's moving in the same general direction anyway. Grace gives in and allows herself to be led. "She's  _ very  _ interesting. A little bit older, of course—over  _ forty _ ."

"Ancient," Grace agrees, with an almost straight face.

"Here she is," the girl announces. "Isabelle—you remember me, don't you?"

Grace is perfectly happy to let her companion be distracted by Isabelle. She's still busy tracking Stanton, and she doesn't look back until Isabelle says—in a voice that is colored by laughter and horrifyingly familiar—"And you've brought a friend, I see?"

Just like that, Grace's attention snaps back to the conversation. And Isabelle. Except Isabelle is obviously as fake a name as Emelia, because  _ that's Grace's mother _ .

Somehow, Grace manages not to show any sign that she's just seen anything unusual. Her mind races as she tries to figure out why her mother is here, who her target is and why, but her face smiles like she would smile at any stranger and her mouth manages a few polite phrases. Her mother looks perfectly at ease, but maybe she's just a little worried too—at one point, she pats the man next to her on the shoulder with such force that he winces.

Conversation goes on for a minute or two more, the both of them pretending not to know one another (because how would they? Grace doesn't want to ruin her mother's cover story, whatever it is, and she's  _ praying  _ her mother won't say anything to ruin hers). Then the flow of people through the room carries them away from each other, and Grace breathes half a sigh of relief.

But she can't resist—when she sees her mother duck into a restroom a few minutes later, Grace follows her.

It's a big, fancy room, probably bigger than the bedroom at home Grace still shares with Elena and Geraldine. It's a tasteful area with mirrors and counters—a door in the corner that Grace  _ assumes  _ leads to the actual toilets looks like an afterthought. This room looks very much like it had been designed mostly as a place for women to redo their makeup, rather than go to the bathroom.

Her mother leans against one of the counters, arms crossed, and she nods at Grace when she comes in without any real surprise. Grace locks the door behind her without looking—she doesn't want to be disturbed. "Should we talk about this?" Grace asks, suddenly nervous. "Because, um… the last time any of us ran into each other on a mission, Connor ended up shot."

"That's not going to happen," her mother says. "Whatever else happens today, both of us are going to walk out of here."

"But—"

" _ Grace _ ."

Grace nods, and tries not to fidget. She's never really seen her mother in full assassin mode like this—she's used to the way her fathers can get professional and a little bit cold on missions, or while doing other templar business, but she's never had to work with her mother before. She's never seen her like this before, and it's… odd. She's used to her mother as  _ her mother _ . Not as an assassin.

"Alright," her mother says. "I don't suppose you'll tell me what you're here for?"

Grace shakes her head stubbornly. "No."

"And I can't tell you my business," her mother says. "I suppose the best we can do is try our best to keep out of each other's way."

"But what if that doesn't work out?" Grace insists. "What if we're both here for the same reason, and we can't both do what we came here for…" Grace trails off. She's still thinking about Connor getting shot because the assassins and templars had both gone after the same target at once.

Her mother hugs her. It's not a reassurance, but—well, what reassurance could she give? Grace is a templar, her mother an assassin. The truth is, the two of them are going to be at odds tonight, no matter what happens.

"We'll talk again when we both get home," her mother assures her.

" _ If  _ we both get home," Grace says moodily.

"Oh, Grace." And for the first time, her mother sounds sad. "We'll be fine, darling." She gives Grace a quick hug and a kiss on her forehead. "I would never allow one of my children to be hurt. And I know you wouldn't hurt me, either."

"Never," Grace agrees.

"Then you have nothing to worry about," her mother says. Then she frowns abruptly. "Apart from possibly being grounded when you get home. That dress is  _ far  _ too short."

"Yours is short too!"

"It's not as short as yours." Her eyes soften a little. "And you're my daughter. That's different."

Grace rolls her eyes and heads out of the restroom, surprisingly cheered up from her mother's scolding. It's just… very normal.

Of course, the sense of normalcy only lasts as far as the door, because as soon as Grace rejoins the main part of the party, she sees a man (she recognizes him first as the man her mother had been with earlier, and then after a moment as one of Stanton's old coworkers, another ex-Abstergo executive) convulsing on the floor. He writhes for a moment, then goes still. Grace knows at once that he's dead. She recognizes the symptoms of a poison the assassins use often, and Grace feels shocked for a moment as she realizes that  _ this  _ must have been her mother's target. She must have poisoned him before going into the restroom, then kept Grace there as he died, to—what? Keep her from interfering?

It should bother Grace to know that her mother had manipulated her like that, but she feels a little thrill of pride instead. Her mother wouldn't have bothered if she didn't think Grace was a threat. And she is, of course. She knows how to recognize the earlier symptoms of the poison, and she knows how to counter it. She  _ would  _ have countered it, if she had the chance. Besides a personal dislike of killing people, Grace would have liked to eventually do to that man what she's planning to do to Stanton. She doesn't know why the assassins want him dead, but it's important to the templars that all these old Abstergo goons be ruined before they die, the same way they had nearly allowed the order to be ruined.

That's when Grace sees her mother headed toward Stanton (is she planning to do the same thing to him?). Grace copies the movement at once. Stanton cannot be allowed to die. Not until she's finished her mission. She makes it to the old man moments before her mother does, and pretends to be suddenly disoriented. She trips and falls—not so accidentally—right into Stanton. Just in time, her mother pulls back the thin blade she'd been just about to stab into Stanton's arm. The poison, no doubt—Grace shifts slightly to keep herself between the two of them. Her mother has already promised not to hurt her, and there's no reason Grace can't use that to her advantage.

"Are you alright, young lady?" Stanton asks.

"Oh yes," Grace says, in a voice that's pitched to make herself sound much more scared than she really is. "Only, I've never seen somebody have a fit like that before—" she hastily leans down on one shoe until the heel cracks off. Geraldine is going to kill her, Grace hadn't asked permission before borrowing them. "And I think I broke a heel off my shoe…"

"Let me help you," Stanton says, in what he probably thinks is a very chivalrous and grand tone.

Grace thanks him profusely, and turns slightly to give him a better view of the dress she'd spent so long picking out. He seems more interested in what's underneath it, but hey that works too. He sticks with her until the police arrive, and then gives them an almost impressive Do You Know Who I Am speech when they insist on holding everyone in the room until they've taken statements and interviews.

(They  _ don't  _ know who he is, incidentally, but they recognize the money he slips them under the table, and let him and Grace slip out.)

Grace thanks him again, more genuinely this time. She hadn't expected anyone to die, so she hadn't prepared for the police to come around asking questions. Grace pretends to be overwhelmed from the earlier death, so she gives Stanton her phone number and lets him put her in a taxi.

He'll call her, Grace decides as she gives the driver a fake address. Probably tomorrow, definitely by the end of the week. All told, a mostly successful evening. She has Stanton right where she wants him. Both she and her mother are okay. Everything's going to be fine.

When she gets home, she is not at all surprised to see her mother has somehow beaten her there, and is lecturing her fathers on proper mission attire. Grace spends half an hour listening to her mother explain proper skirt length and heel height, which  _ sucks _ . But then when that's over, her mother hugs her tight, she rocks Grace on her lap like she used to when Grace was a kid, and she promises that everything is going to be okay.

And it's just such a relief to be told that everything is fine, that Grace lets herself believe it.


	194. Chapter 194

Geraldine has always been the smartest in her class. It doesn't always show, not in her grades, because there have only ever been a few years she actually managed to finish a grade in the same school she started in. But her teachers praise her for her mind, and she always gets moved up to honors classes. Even when they move and her parents make a point of enrolling her in regular classes, to help her blend in, they say.    
  
Geraldine doesn't want to blend in. She doesn't want to be in the English class where they're highlighting metaphors and similes while a teacher lectures them, she wants to be in the one where they're debating themes and symbolism. In history, she wants the class where they talk about the how thousands of native Americans died when Europeans came to the area, she doesn't want the one where the teacher talks about the first thanksgiving. And if she has to sit through one more algebra class when she could be doing calculus, she's going to scream.    
  
She's only been at her newest school for two months when she's called down to the main office. She goes (she's not missing much—gym class), and wonders idly while they've called her down. Hopefully this has something to do with her academics, and it's not like the last school where her teachers noticed she wasn't making friends and made her talk to the school’s social worker. No thanks, if she needs therapy she'll go talk to her parents’ therapist.    
  
But it's her guidance counselor waiting for her in the office. They say their polite hellos, and then the counselor ushers Geraldine into her little cubby hole of a private office.    
  
“I wanted to talk to you about your ACT scores,” she says, when the two of them are settled.    
  
“I haven't gotten them yet,” Geraldine says. No one’s had time to drive to the PO box and check the mail in a while.    
  
“It's alright,” her counselor says. “The school gets them first, anyway.” She slides an official looking report over the desk toward Geraldine. “Congratulations. You got a 34.”   
  
A 36 is the highest score. Geraldine looks over her report, trying to figure out where she's lost points. Perfect scores on the math and science sections, 35 in reading… Oh, of course. It's the essay section that had killed her.    
  
“My last school was out east,” she says, looking up at the guidance counselor. “I spent all my time prepping for the SATs. Do you think I could retake this?”   
  
“You want to improve your score? Geraldine, there are only two students in the school with scores higher than yours. It's not something to sneeze at.”   
  
“I know,” Geraldine says. Honestly, the score doesn't even matter. She'll probably be in a new school with a different fake name by the time she starts her senior year. “But… I could do better.”   
  
The counselor smiles a little. “Well I suppose you could if you want to. I'll find the list of test dates before I send you back to class.”   
  
“Thank you.”   
  
“But what I really want to talk to you about are the colleges you had your score sent to.”   
  
“Oh.”   
  
Part of the process of applying to colleges is sending them a copy of either the ACT or SAT scores. Normally there's a fee involved, but this school lets each student choose three colleges to send their scores to at no cost to them.    
  
“You've picked the local community college, and two… Let's just say two schools with very mediocre academics.”   
  
Geraldine nods. She knows she won't be going to colleges, she's going to be an assassin.    
  
“Is it a financial issue?” her counselor asks. “Because I've spoken to several of your teachers, and they're very impressed with your work.”   
  
Geraldine smiles a little.    
  
“I don't think you would have any difficulty finding a scholarship if that's what you want to do. And there are several state schools that could be relatively affordable, and still give you a good education…”   
  
They talk about schools for almost an hour, and Geraldine allows herself to be swept along by the thought of higher education.    
  
But then the bell rings, and it's the end of the school day, and Geraldine is riding the bus home with Grace. And Grace is just so excited because she has some Templar mission this weekend—Geraldine doesn't know exactly what her sister is going to be doing and she doesn't much care. Grace’s tense excitement is reminder enough that nothing in this family is normal. She's not normal, and when she's done with high school she won't be allowed to go to college. She'll have to be a full time assassin, like Elena.    
  
-//-   
  
“Mom?” Geraldine asks that night. She's standing in the doorway of her parents bedroom, nervously trying to think of the best way to ask her question. “If I wanted to stop being an assassin, could I?”   
  
“Do you?”   
  
Her mother’s face is unreadable.    
  
“I…think so? I don't know. I just want to go to college. Did you know I got a 34 on my ACT?” She can see by the look on her mom's face that she doesn't know what this means. “That's  _ good. _ And my teachers say I'm smart, and mom I know I could do well in college, I could do so well.”   
  
“Geraldine,” her mother says. “I know it's difficult, but you made your choice.”   
  
“Yea,” Geraldine says. She almost laughs with the absurdity of it. “When I was ten! What kind of ten year old knows what they want to do with their life?”   
  
“But now you know?” her mother asks. “And it's not the assassins?”   
  
“No,” Geraldine says. “No, I don't think it is. It's… I don't know but it's something else.”   
  
Her mother is quiet for a good long time, and Geraldine prays she's actually considering it. Then she says, “Do you know what happened to Desmond when he left the assassins?”   
  
Geraldine feels her shoulders slump in defeat. “Abstergo found him,” she says. “And put him in an animus.”   
  
“Yes,” her mother says. “Geraldine, I know you're very intelligent. And if things were different, I would love to see you go to school and do all the things you want to do. But you have to understand, you would be in so much danger if you left.”   
  
“So you're saying I can't?”   
  
“I'm saying…” She sighs. “I won't ever force you to stay with the brotherhood. But you are a smart girl. I think you know what the dangers are of leaving.”   
  
“Yea,” Geraldine mutters. “Yea, I guess so.”


	195. Chapter 195

"So this is where you're going to stay?" Grace asks. She's perched on the edge of Geraldine's bed, looking small and delicate, almost like a little bird, half hidden behind Geraldine's boxes of stuff.

"Yea," Geraldine says.

"And you're really going to stay here for four  _ years _ ?" Grace asks. "You're not going to move around or anything?"

"I mean, I probably won't be in the same room for all four years," Geraldine says. "But no, I don't think I'll have to wake up one morning and move to another state because Abstergo's found me."

"You're gonna get bored," Grace says, her tone almost a warning.

"Are you kidding me? I'm sick of moving around all the time."

Grace droops a little. "But that's what our family does," she insists. "And—and you have to share your room with that Lisa girl." She points an accusatory finger at the still empty half of the dorm room. Geraldine's future roommate has yet to arrive, so for now it's still empty.

"I've shared a room with you and Elena since we were all kids," Geraldine says. "I'm used to having roommates."

"But we're family," Grace says. "She's just some stranger.  _ And  _ I'm gonna have to be all by myself in our room now you're gone." She kicks one of Geraldine's boxes bad temperedly.

"I didn't tell Elena to go off on some mission," Geraldine says.

"Yea, well I didn't tell you to go to school," Grace mutters. "At least Elena will come back when her mission's done."

Geraldine closes her eyes. "Can't you just be happy for me?"

"But what are we going to do without you?" Grace asks. "We need you at home."

"You don't need me," Geraldine says. "I'm like the least useful person at the safehouse."

"That's  _ not _ true," Grace says. "And it wouldn't matter if it was. It's going to be lonely at home without you."

"I'm sure you'll be fine," Geraldine says. "There's plenty of other people at home."

Grace springs off the bed and hugs her. "Can I come visit?"

"Any time you want," Geraldine says. "Just… make sure you ask Papa. Don't ask Maman, she doesn't like me being at school in the first place. I don't know if she'd be okay with you visiting."

"If Maman doesn't like it, why are you  _ going _ ?"

"Because… it's not up to her or anyone else what I do with my life. I have to do this for me."

"That's so  _ selfish _ ," Grace says. "Come back. Stay at home."

"Grace—" Geraldine steps back, away from the hug. "I'm doing this. Come visit, that'd be great. And you can Skype or call or whatever but I'm not going to change my mind."

"You changed your mind about being an ass—"

"Am I interrupting something?"

They both look up when a stranger carrying a box steps into the room, and then Geraldine says "Lisa?"

"This is my sister," Grace says. "She's leaving so I called her an ass."

Geraldine droops a little, and tries to reassure herself that Grace is only saying that to cover up that she'd almost slipped up and used the word assassin in front of a stranger.

"Uh—" Lisa puts her box down on the bed and edges back toward the door. "I'll let you two finish your conversation while I go get the rest of my stuff."

"Great," Geraldine says to Grace. "Now my roommate thinks I'm weird, and it hasn't even been five minutes yet."

"See?" Grace says. "You don't want to live with her, you can come home—"

The door opens again, but this time it's their papa, not Lisa. "Grace," he says. "This is what Geraldine wants to do, and you need to respect that." He puts his load down and wraps his arms around Geraldine. He's as strong a support as he ever has been, he feels safe and smells like home, and for a crazy second Geraldine actually wants to change her mind and leave with him and Grace. "We're very  _ proud  _ of Geraldine. Alright, Grace? She's done an amazing job just getting into this school, and she's going to be even more amazing when she's done."

"Thanks, Papa," Geraldine says. She takes a little breath and then half a step away from him. "And tell Mom I miss her?"

For a second his smile falters. "She's not angry with you, Geraldine," he says. "You know that, don't you? She's upset with me for suggesting this in the first place."

Geraldine shrugs, uncomfortably, and glances away.

And then it's time for goodbyes, and all of a sudden Geraldine is standing at her window, watching her papa and Grace get into the car and drive away. Geraldine swallows back tears, and reminds herself that she wants this. She stays at the window, watching the street below, while Lisa goes through her own unpacking and goodbyes.

Then Lisa says—"Uh… Geraldine? It's Geraldine, right?"

Geraldine turns around. Lisa is smiling the thin, brittle smile of someone trying not to cry. She hasn't started unpacking yet, but Geraldine spots a picture sitting out on her desk—a man, a woman, a girl that looks like Lisa, and three younger boys.

"Yea," Geraldine says. "Um… hi."

"So… I was thinking about going out to find my classes this afternoon, and then maybe going to the bookstore to get my textbooks. Do you maybe want to come with me?"

"Sure," Geraldine says. "But I ordered my books already, see—?" She half opens one box to let Lisa have a look at the thick pile of books there.

"Wow," Lisa says. "It's all so… so  _ collegy _ , you know?"

"Yes," Geraldine says, and they share a sort of awkward, nervous, excited laugh. Then they head out to look for their classes, united for the moment in a desperate need to not feel homesick, and a fragile hope that the next four years are going to be amazing.


	196. Chapter 196

Elena's in the safehouse's basement, trying out a new sword, when Rory appears in front of her. He nods in greeting, and Elena mutters a hello before going back to weighing the blade in her hand.

"It doesn't look like much," Rory says, joining her in her examination of the blade.

"Well, no one fights with swords in this century," Elena says. "Do they?"

"I don't know," Rory says. "You tell me."

"They don't."

"Then why do you have one?" Rory asks.

Elena grins broadly. "I grew up visiting all of you," she says. "I saw all of  _ you  _ learning to use a sword, and when Dad said I probably wouldn't need to know any of that, I was really disappointed. So he saw that, and said I could learn. I mean, it's not helpful in every situation. It definitely doesn't help me blend in. But if I don't need to stay hidden, it's great. Abstergo's people don't even know what to  _ do  _ against a sword."

Rory laughs. "Thank you for the mental image of a bunch of templars being stabbed to death," he says. "You just made my day a little bit brighter."

"They're Abstergo," Elena says. "They're not templars, like Grandpa, or your dad. Or Grace. Do you want to spar with me? I can't decide if this is weighted right."

Rory draws his own sword and they settle into a casual sparring session. Elena's spent a fair bit of time learning swordplay from Aveline, and Rory's style is very similar. Elena is still mostly paying attention to her sword when Rory says, "Grace."

"What?"

"She's really a templar?"

Elena is quiet for a second, considering the best way to answer this. She knows Rory has an almost fanatical loathing for templars. But Grace is proud to be one. "Yes," Elena says at last.

Rory scowls, and trips over his own feet—Elena steps back quickly to avoid being accidentally stabbed, then hovers a few feet away, waiting to see if Rory's going to jump back into their sparring. He doesn't. Instead, he resheathes his blade and leans against one of the basement walls. "Why does this keep happening?" he demands. "Why do I keep having sisters that are templars?"

"I don't know," Elena says. She sets the sword aside for the moment, and joins Rory against the wall.

"Jeanne'll be thrilled, of course," Rory says. "Someone else on her side."

"I don't think Grace really picked a side," Elena says. "I mean—she did, obviously, but not between you and Jeanne. She joined the templars because she thought that was the right thing to do."

Rory grunts. "At least Geraldine's still an assassin," he says. "She is, isn't she?"

"Um…"

"Oh. She's turned traitor, then? Joined the templars?"

"Left to go to school," Elena says. "She decided she'd rather be a rocket scientist than an assassin  _ or  _ a templar."

"A what?"

"I mean—I don't really understand what she's studying. But it's some kind of science. And it sounds hard."

Rory shrugs. "But… she's not an assassin either."

"No."

"Oh," Rory says. "It's just… lonely, you know? I have all these siblings, and they don't get why the assassins are so important."

Elena gives him a hug. "Maybe I'm not your sister," she says. "But I'm your visitor, and I love being an assassin. I believe in what we're doing, and in the creed." She gives his shoulder a little squeeze. "Now come on, let's get back to our sparring—I bet I can kick your ass."

For a second, it almost looks like Rory is going to argue. Then he grins at her and nods. "Sounds great," he says. "I still sort of feeling like hitting something."

Elena scoffs, and picks up her sword. "Drama Queen."


	197. Chapter 197

Over the past few years, Desmond has developed an interesting relationship with his visitor Evie, the one who is still going through her first life. It's funny, because not all that long ago he'd been desperately in love with her. But all he can see now are all the ways she hasn't  _ quite  _ grown into the woman he's married. She's the same person, yes, but Desmond isn't in love with visiting Evie the way he's in love with his wife.

They talk during most of their visits. Just talk. Occasionally, Desmond will drop in while Evie is in the middle of some mission or other, and these are obviously more exciting visits. But overall, his goal is just to be a good friend to her. And he thinks it's working pretty well—the visits aren't awkward the way they could have been. Desmond always likes spending time with Evie, regardless of the circumstances, and she seems to return the feeling. They get along.

So, when Desmond transitions abruptly from helping James with his finger painting (which mostly means not letting him smear paint over the floor) to standing at Evie's side in an assassin safe house that no longer exists, he smiles. Evie is close by—of course she is, he's visiting her—leaning down to help a girl just a little younger than James as she takes a few stumbling steps.

Desmond smiles, surprised, and catches Evie's eye as she suddenly smiles too. She doesn't say anything, she never does when there are other people around, but Desmond doesn't need an explanation to know this must be one of her daughters. So far, he hasn't seen either of them on visits, but who else would she be?

He stays out of the way but within visiting range as Evie helps the little girl stumble around the room. She keeps almost falling, and with each misstep she clings more tightly to Evie, and by the end she's clutching at her mother with no sign she's planning to let go anytime soon.

Evie lifts the toddler up, holding her against her chest, then gives her a kiss on the forehead. "You're doing so well," she praises. " _ So  _ well." And either the words or the kiss or the hug get through to the toddler; she hugs Evie around the neck and smiles a little.

-//-

"Sorry," Evie tells Desmond, when she's put her daughter down for a nap and come back to him. "You know I don't want to ignore you."

"I know," Desmond says, after a brief hesitation. "You don't want the people in your life to know about visiting." Not now, anyway. But in her second lifetime, she very obviously regrets that she hadn't told her family about her visitors.

But that would be a spoiler, and Desmond isn't Edward. Evie's life is hers to live, and her mistakes are hers to make. She wouldn't want it any other way.

"Thanks," Evie sighs. She smiles at him, and a trace of pride creeps into the expression. "Have you met Abigail yet?"

"Not yet," Desmond says. "Your daughter, right?"

"Yes."

"She's a lucky little girl," Desmond says. "To have you as a mother."

Evie's smile stretches all the way across her face. "I'm the lucky one," she says. "I never thought I'd want to be a mother. Jacob used to tease me about it when we were kids, of course, because that's what women are supposed to do in this century. We have children. But it's different now. I don't know exactly why, but… it is." Her smile droops abruptly, just a fraction. "I'm sorry," she says. "Is this… difficult for you? Because of our past?"

"No," Desmond assures her. He can't begrudge Evie her love for Abigail. And he feels safe knowing Evie and James will both be there when his visit ends and he goes home. "I understand—I have Elena, and Sage." And James.

Elena seems to take this as encouragement to start talking about Abigail and just not stop. Desmond lets her continue until his visit ends and he's back at home, watching James stamp bright blue handprints onto construction paper.

"I just saw your sister," Desmond says, leaning down to stop James from spreading the handprints onto the floor as well.

Luckily, this distracts James from his art. "Daddy saw 'Lena?" He raises a hand hopefully, reaching for Desmond's nose. His arm is a couple inches too short to reach, so Desmond leans in a little. The paint on his nose is a small price to pay for the delighted smile on James's face.

"No," Desmond says. "Her name's Abigail, and you should ask your mommy to tell you all about her. Okay?"

"Okay," James says cheerfully. Desmond helps him wash his hands, and then James goes toddling off to find Evie. By the time Desmond has cleaned up James's mess and laid out his art to dry, James is curled up next to Evie, listening closely to a story about the two big sisters he'll never get to meet. Desmond watches for a while, smiling, as Evie's story goes on. Maybe Evie had stubbornly refused to tell anyone about visiting in her first life, but it doesn't seem like there's any chance at all of James growing up the same way.


	198. Chapter 198

Geraldine stays at school during the summer after her freshman year. One of her professors is doing this absolutely fascinating research project that Geraldine is dying to be a part of, and after a solid month of effort she manages to get a spot on his team of student researchers. She's the only freshman there, but Geraldine doesn't let that discourage her. This is how she's going to learn.

Besides, it's an excuse not to go home for the summer. Whatever home means—in some ways, her dorm room feels more like a home than most of the places she'd stayed growing up. Here, Geraldine doesn't have to keep her most important possessions in easy to grab bags, because she doesn't have to worry about suddenly being forced to run. This is  _ her  _ space, at least until she gets a new room assignment at the start of sophomore year, and nothing and no one is going to take it away from Geraldine.

Her roommate, Lisa—whose parents are normal and boring and don't kill people—is really worried about Geraldine. "You're going to get bored hanging out here all summer," she says, while she's packing up to leave.

"There are worse things in the world than boredom," Geraldine says.

"What about your family?" Lisa asks. "I can't wait to see mine." She considers this for several seconds, pausing in the middle of folding a pile of shirts. "I'll probably be sick of them in two weeks, but right  _ now  _ I can't wait to see them."

Geraldine gives her a tense little smile. "My family's complicated," she explains.

"Whose isn't?"

"My mother doesn't even think I should be here," Geraldine says. "I'm not sure she'll ever forgive me for coming to college."

Lisa mutters something conciliatory, and goes back to her folding.

Geraldine has nothing to pack; she's not moving out. So she flops back on her bed instead and tries to think of something to do. Finals have just ended, but Geraldine is still in high pressure study mode. She feels almost guilty for not having a textbook open in front of her, even though there are no exams left to prepare for.

"Why doesn't your mom want you at school?" Lisa asks.

"Mmm." Geraldine doesn't talk about her family much while she's at school. They're hard to explain. "She worries about me."

"Yea," Lisa says. "But parents have to let their kids have some freedom eventually, and college is as good a place as any."

"I don't know," Geraldine says.

Lisa goes quiet. Geraldine considers doing a little bit of fun reading, for a change. A novel or a magazine instead of a textbook or an academic journal. She has a couple she'd brought from home, and Grace had sent her some for Christmas. But Geraldine has never been a huge fan of novels.

She briefly considers rereading some of her textbooks for fun.

Lisa finishes folding up her clothes and leaves the room. Geraldine kicks at her pillow. A few minutes later, Lisa comes back with a fistful of envelopes. "Mail," she announces. "Did we check the mailbox at all during finals?"

"I didn't," Geraldine says, sitting up. "Did you?"

"I didn't even check my  _ Snapchat _ during finals," Lisa says. Geraldine does her level best to hide her smile at her roommate's horrified tone.

"So did we get anything good?" she asks, pointing at the mail.

"Pizza advertisement," Lisa says. "Sandwich advertisement. Chinese food advertisement."

"Anything in there that's not directly related to food?" Geraldine asks.

"Um…" Lisa keeps flipping through the stack of papers, discarding several. "Bus advertisement." She looks up at Geraldine and waves the envelope meaningfully. "Your family's pretty close to here, aren't they?"

"Yes?" Geraldine says, doubtfully. The last she'd heard, they were only a couple hours away, but they don't always tell her when and where they're moving anymore. It's not all that important that she knows.

"Maybe you could go home for the weekend," Lisa says. "Just for a couple of days? Can't hurt, right?"

"When are your parents coming to pick you up?" Geraldine asks. When in doubt, it's usually safest to change the subject completely. "Are you going to have your stuff packed before they get here?"

It works; Lisa stays focused on her packing until her parents show up and take her away. Geraldine hugs her roommate goodbye, and then watches her leave from the window. When she turns back to the room, it looks foreign and empty with all of Lisa's things cleared out.

Her side of the room is completely bare. The mattress is stripped, the desk is cleared out, the fluffy pink carpet she'd put next to her closet is gone. The only thing left is a single piece of paper taped to Lisa's bedpost.

When Geraldine gets up to see what it is, she is not as surprised as she should be to see that it's the bus advertisement. She stands there for a long time, trying to figure out what to do.

-//-

Aveline answers the door to find Geraldine standing there, clutching a duffel bag and shuffling her feet nervously. She's surprised, but hides it well, sweeping her daughter into a tight hug, and then shuffling her inside and out of sight because there have been Abstergo agents in the neighborhood lately. "I didn't know you were coming home," she tells Geraldine.

"I didn't tell anyone," Geraldine says. "I'm just home for the weekend, Maman, okay? Then I'm going straight back to school."

"Of course you are," Aveline says. She's disappointed, but not at all surprised.

Geraldine fidgets. "I'm doing well in school," she says. "I like it there. I know it's not what you wanted for me, but—"

"Of course you're fitting in well," Aveline says. "It's exactly where you need to be."

"I thought you didn't want me going to school," Geraldine says. "I thought…"

"I worry about you every second you're there," Aveline says. "I worry Abstergo will find you, and hurt you." She realizes her voice is harsher than she wants it to be, and speaks more softly. It's been a long time since Geraldine was home, and Aveline  _ knows  _ that's partly her fault. "But I'm very proud of what you've done."

"Okay," Geraldine says quietly.

She stays the full weekend, and for the rest of the summer she sends Aveline at least one lengthy email every week, keeping her updated on her life and her work. Aveline saves every one.


	199. Chapter 199

Whenever the assassins and Templars find a piece of Eden, Connor and Sage are the ones that are tasked with hiding it away again. It's not a solution everyone is satisfied with, but it's the least objectionable solution anyone has been able to think of. Hiding them is better than anything else that anyone has been able to think of.

"Why do you guys always get to do it?" James demands once, when Sage comes by to meet Connor and take away a piece of Eden the Templars have recently stolen from Abstergo.

Connor is busy packing away the Piece of Eden, so Sage answers.

"Did Dad ever tell you about when Abstergo kidnapped him and put him in an animus?" he asks.

"No," James says. "He doesn't like to talk about it. But Shaun told me."

"Did he tell you _why_ they put Dad in the animus?"

"They wanted to know about Altair," James says. "Because he didn't live in this time yet."

"They wanted to know about a piece of Eden that Altair saw," Sage corrects. "What about Owen, or Clay? Do you know why Abstergo took them?"

James isn't a dumb kid. He puts the pieces together, and says, "More pieces of Eden?"

"Exactly," Sage says. "And even if Abstergo is gone someday, we don't know if someone in the future will start doing the same thing. Maybe in five hundred years, they'll start looking for our descendants, so they can look into our memories and figure out where we hid the pieces."

"That sounds bad."

"It is bad," Sage agrees. "Which is why Connor and I are always the ones that do the hiding."

"Why?"

"Well… Connor is Connor. He's just not interested in having more kids. And I'm asexual."

"What does _that_ mean?" James asks. He sounds skeptical.

"In this case," Sage says. "It's pretty much a superpower."

Connor announces he's ready, and Sage hurries after him. So maybe the superpower thing is a little over the top, but it's nice to pretend it's  _kind_ of true for once. Sage is never going to have kids. No one is ever going to be able to use some descendant of his to go through his memories, so whatever Sage does is no one's business but his own.

Well, his and Connor's. As the two of them head out of the safehouse with the piece of Eden, Sage feels pretty damn good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Shrug* Sometimes I just want to write ace stories, but it's hard because there's no drama in it. There are so many interesting stories you can tell with romance and sex, but with asexuals...? It's difficult.


	200. Chapter 200

James corners his mother almost as soon as he gets home from school. “Mom!” he says. “Mom, the kids at school were talking about Helix today.”   
  
“And what did you tell them?” she asks. James knows from her tone that this is a test, but it's cool—he can pass this one.   
  
“I said it’s really dangerous and they shouldn't use it anymore,” he says promptly, because it is and they shouldn't. James, like most of his classmates (and most other ten year old boys), likes some danger. Just last week, he'd come this close to winning when all the neighborhood kids competed to see who could go the farthest when they jumped off the swings at the park. But he remembers when Grandpa was crazy, and he remembers when Elena was stuck in the animus, and he knows Helix is bad news. “But mom!”   
  
“Yes, James?”   
  
“One of them said you were in a Helix game—I mean, he didn't know it was really you, he just told me it was someone that looked like you, because he doesn't know about time travel—and he said you killed Jack the Ripper, and—“   
  
Suddenly, his mom crouches down right next to him, and puts her hands on his shoulders. James squirms when she looks him straight in the eyes, but she won't let him wiggle away.   
  
“James,” she says. “You must never talk about that—“ the disgust in her voice is so firm and strong that James flinches. “That man in this house, is that clear? And never when your Uncle Jacob is around.”   
  
“Why?”   
  
“James!”   
  
“Okay, okay! But why?”   
  
His mother sighs and eases up, just a little. “Some people hurt others with guns and blades,” she says. “And when they do, we know how to help them. But some people hurt others in other ways. They hurt them in their mind and in their heart. And I don't think Jacob will ever completely forget what Jack did to him.”   
  
“Is that why he screams at night sometimes?” James asks. He drops his voice to a whisper without quite knowing why.   
  
“Yes it is,” his mother says. “But he's not as bad as he was once. We just don't want to make him think about Jack again.”   
  
“Okay.”   
  
His mother smiles and kisses him on the forehead, ignoring his ‘Mom, ew!’ and sends him off to get started on his homework.    
  
-//-   
  
During recess, the boys usually play kickball or other fun stuff while the girls play with their hair or whatever girls do. But the next day, one of the boys—his name is Pete—has a new idea. Pete’s the same guy that had bragged about his parents letting him use their Helix (no one else at school has one--he's convinced it makes him special), the one who had told James about his mom being in a Helix game.   
  
“Let's play Jack the Ripper,” he says. “I'll be Jack, cuz I know all about him from Helix.”   
  
No you don't, James thinks. You don't know what he did to my uncle. They're all crowded together at the tallest point of the school's playground, next to the slide, and suddenly the plastic holding them up in the air feels very thin and unsteady. Or maybe it's just this whole stupid Jack the Ripper thing that makes James feel uncertain and off balance.    
  
“What's that mean?” one of the other boys asks. “How do you play that?”   
  
“I'll go chase all the girls,” the wanna-be Jack says. “And you guys try to stop me, only you can't because I'm bigger and faster and smarter than all of you.”   
  
No one else really seems excited about this, but Pete is used to getting his way and slowly everyone caves. Everyone but James.    
  
“It's a stupid game,” he mumbles. “And Jack the Ripper isn't funny.”   
  
Pete calls James an asshole (Pete thinks he's so cool because his big brother taught him that word, but James has learned way worse from Edward) and pokes him in the ear as he dashes off, the other boys following him. James stays at the top of the playground for a while longer. He watches Pete chasing the girls around, pulling their hair and teasing them. One of them gives him a quick, sharp kick in the shins, but that only makes Pete focus more on her, and she crumples under the weight of the personal attention.    
  
James tries to stay out of it. He tries. But Jack the Ripper isn't funny, and neither is Pete the Asshole.   
  
-//-   
  
Jacob is the only one available to come get James from school when his principal calls to say he's been suspended. James is waiting just outside her office with a split open knee and a black eye, and Jacob has a general idea of what happened even before the principal calls him into her office to give him all the details.    
  
“So,” he says, when he's bundled James into the car and started toward home. “You jumped off the top of the playground, landed on one of your classmates, and kicked him in the balls.”   
  
“Yep,” James says. He's staring out the window as if the side of the road has suddenly got a lot more interesting between yesterday and today.   
  
“Want to share why?”   
  
James turns away from the window and gives him a pleading look, almost begging Jacob not to ask questions. “No.”   
  
“Well, was it important, at least?”   
  
This time James nods, firmly.    
  
“Then that's ok,” Jacob says. “And hey—jumping off tall things and beating up bad guys? You're practically an assassin already.”   
  
He means it as a joke, but James frowns harder and rubs at his black eye. “I didn't like it,” he says. “I'm never gonna make friends at that school now. And my face hurts.”   
  
“It gets better,” Jacob says.    
  
“I think maybe I'll try the Templar way next time,” James grumbles. “I can just tell the lunch mom and let her get Pete in trouble. And no one has to know it came from me, and I can still have friends…”   
  
They spend the rest of the ride home in quiet silence, but when they're back at the safe house, James dashes out and hugs Jacob. “I'm glad you're ok,” he says.    
  
“Sure,” Jacob says. “Why wouldn't I be?”   
  
“I'm just glad,” James insists, and hugs his uncle tighter. 


	201. Chapter 201

Elena's birthday is in June, and Matthew's is in January. There are hundreds of years between them. And yet they still manage to spend their thirtieth birthdays together. He's visiting her, which means they're huddled up in the tiny room she's renting in Tokyo. It's been over a month since she took out the target she was sent here to find, but she's surprised how much she likes the city, and she's decided to stay on a little while longer. It's been… a hard year.

They curl up together on her narrow little bed, and his arms around her are as much a comfort as they have always been. But not even Matthew, not even the surprise of sharing their birthday,  _ nothing  _ can pull Elena out of her funk. And Matthew notices, of course he does, because he knows her better than anyone. He kisses her bare shoulders and pulls her closer. "What's wrong, love?" he asks.

"Nothing."

"Elena—"

"Nothing's  _ wrong _ ," she says, frustrated. "It's just that… nothing's right."

"I don't follow," Matthew says.

"I…" It's a foolish thought, one she's had since childhood, one she's  _ never  _ shared with anyone. But if she can't talk to Matthew, she'll never be able to talk to anyone. Separated by time, space, a million obstacles that are impossible to overcome, he is still closer to her than any other person. "When I was a girl," she says softly. "You know I grew up with dad and all his visitors in the same house."

"Of course," Matthew agrees.

"And I knew that their children were  _ my  _ visitors. I always just assumed that one day we would all have children, and all those children would be visitors to each other. But that won't ever happen, will it? Because… because there won't be any children. None. Darim and Marcello can't have children, they're both men. Same for Jeanne and Jacob, they're both women. Jenny will never fall in love, not after what she's going through, and Rory will never be able to focus on any man or woman as long as he's so caught up in worrying about Jeanne. And you and I…" she turns around in bed so that she can look at his face, at his eyes. "We're together, we have everything we need to make a baby, but… I can't conceive while one of us is visiting."

Matthew is silent for a moment, considering her. Elena drops her gaze—she can't look him in the eye, not now.

"If you want a child," he says, after a very long time, "There are… ways to do that in this time, aren't there?"

"There are," she says quietly. "But I don't… I  _ do  _ want a child. But I want to have it with you. I want to have  _ our  _ child."

"You can't." He says it softly, sympathetically, but it doesn't hurt any less for all that. "That's not how visiting works."

"Then visiting isn't  _ fair _ ."

This seems to hurt him. Elena can feel his arms stiffen around her. "Visiting has been more than fair to us," he says. "We'd never have met at all without it. We have friends. People to rely on. We have each other, and you still want more?"

She does. It's awful and selfish of her, but she  _ does _ . "I'm sorry," Elena says. "But don't you ever think… it would be nice…"

"Of course I do," he says. "Maybe in another world, we could have lived together. We'd have more than visits. We could marry, have a family, children. You're right, it would be nice. But that's not the world we live in."

Elena doesn't answer. She turns over again, and spends the rest of the night with her back to Matthew, pretending to be asleep.


	202. Chapter 202

This is the longest, hottest summer Rory can remember. The whole city has gone listless and languid under the unending heat wave, and no one much wants to venture outside before dark unless they have to.

It's less crowded than usual at home, at least. The Templars are up North somewhere, doing… stupid Templar stuff (Rory has no idea what they're doing, and he doesn't much want to), and Philippe has finally done what he's been hinting he wants to do since he was Rory's age, and moved out to be closer to his business.

So it's just Rory and Tomas at home, with their mother of course. But she has assassin obligations that mean she has to leave the city every so often, mostly to go out to the bayou, and occasionally a little farther away. On those days, Rory is left alone to mind Tomas.

Technically, Tomas is too old to need a babysitter. He's fourteen. But he's currently grounded (or, as he insists on saying, _marooned_ ) indefinitely as punishment for stealing a ship. So when the brothers are left alone in the city, it comes down to Rory to make sure Tomas doesn't take the opportunity to bolt.

The heat helps him there, at least. Tomas seems more interested in lying around whining about how life isn't fair than in resuming his pirating career. So on the one hand, Rory doesn't have to worry (too much) about having to explain that Tomas ran off under his watch. But on the other hand, he has to spend the whole summer putting up with his whiny little brother.

One day, while their mother is again out at the bayou, Tomas interrupts the pity party he's throwing for himself to ask, "Are they _watching_?"

He has to ask three times, because Rory has gotten really good at ignoring him. But when he finally realizes Tomas is actually asking him a question, and not just complaining generally.

"Are who watching?" Rory asks.

"I dunno," Tomas says. "Maman and Papa's visitors. Or yours and Jeanne's. I don't know how all that works, I just think it's weird that there's all these invisible people watching all the time."

"Come on, Tomas," Rory scoffs. "You know that's all crap—"

"No it's _not_ ," Tomas says. "And you know it's not. I don't get it, Maman and Papa are always telling us about visiting, but you and Jeanne always pretend like it's stupid. Even though you can see them too! And—" He points an accusatory finger at Rory. "You and Jeanne _both_ do it, which is weird because you never agree on anything. Ever."

Rory opens his mouth. Closes it again. Then he sits down next to his brother and says, "How did you know?"

"What," Tomas says. "Like it's supposed to be some big secret?"

"Yes."

"Oh." Tomas shrugs. "I don't know. I guess when we were kids, I always just thought it was some game you and Jeanne didn't want to play with me because I was too little." He glances up at Rory, and for a second their eyes meet. Tomas looks distinctly unhappy for a moment, before apparently remembering that he's fourteen, and doesn't need to care about Rory's opinion of him. He shrugs. "Then I figured out that Maman and Papa had real visitors, so I just figured you and Jeanne could see them too."

"Uh…" Somehow, it's never even occurred to Rory to worry about Tomas figuring out that he and Jeanne are visitors. They've spent their whole lives keeping it secret from their parents, but their baby brother is a completely different story. "Well, technically Maman and Papa have a different set of visitors than me and Jeanne. We can't see their visitors and they can't see ours." He pauses. "And for the record, no. No one's watching us right now. I'm not in the middle of a visit, and Maman and Papa aren't here so their visitors can't be either."

Tomas frowns. He looks like he's trying to figure out if Rory is playing some elaborate joke on him. "Why can't you see each other's visitors?" he asks after a moment.

"That's just how it works."

"Well that's stupid."

Rory shrugs. "Take it up with the universe, I guess."

Tomas scowls. Then he asks, "But why do you and Jeanne pretend like you don't believe in visitors?"

"It's a long story."

"I can't exactly go anywhere," Tomas points out. "And you're supposed to be watching me."

Rory frowns. But come to think of it, it's probably a good idea to make sure Tomas knows why he can't go running his mouth off about B-Team in front of their parents. "Well," he says. "After Maman and Papa die—" Tomas flinches and frowns. "They're going to get this sort of second life in the future. Jeanne and I have a visitor that lives in that same time. So we know from visiting her that Maman and Papa aren't going to know about us until after they die. We don't want to risk changing the future, and—Tomas, this is serious, okay? You can't tell them either."

Tomas doesn't look entirely convinced.

"Jeanne will one hundred percent agree with me on this if you ask her," Rory adds. "And you know it's serious if we're both telling you the same thing."

Tomas is, apparently, still stuck at an earlier point in the conversation. "They live in the future?" he asks, skeptically.

"Yea."

"Really?"

Rory nods.

"What's that like?"

"Well," Rory says. "They, uh…" he knows his face must be red, and hopes Tomas will think it's embarrassment rather than anger. But he can't quite think of their parents in the future without thinking of them with that _other_ Templar. "They have more kids," he says, before the pause can get long enough for Tomas to notice.

His distraction works. For the first time, Tomas seems more enthusiastic than skeptical. "So I'm not the youngest anymore?"

"You are," Rory assures him. "For the next couple hundred years, anyway."

"It still counts!"

"You'll be dead for ages before they're born."

"So will you!" Tomas leans forward a little. "How many kids did they have? Probably like twenty, they're _always_ having sex." He says this in a half affronted, half jealous tone that suggests that he doesn't think his _parents_ have any right to be having more sex than him.

"Just two." Then, predicting Tomas's next question. "Geraldine and Grace." He doesn't mention that Grace is sort of that other Templar's daughter too. Rory's still not entirely sure how he feels about that… development in his parents' relationship, but he definitely doesn't like thinking about them— _both_ of them—with… someone else.

"What are they like?" Tomas asks. He shifts a little on his chair, into a more comfortable position. It doesn't look like he's planning to move any time in the near future.

-//-

In the end, Rory never does manage to get Tomas to promise to keep B-Team a secret. But that's just his way—he'll make a point out of refusing to give his word, just on general principles, but he'll never breathe a word to anyone anyway. Probably. Rory makes a mental note to keep an eye on him for a while.

But while he doesn't get that promise, he does spend more time with Tomas that weekend than he has in a long while. They talk about both sets of visitors, and the little sisters Tomas is never going to meet, and what it's like to see the future. Rory has to (grudgingly) admit that it's nice to share visiting with someone else for a change.

That night, when they've gone through every question Tomas can think of, and they're both in their own rooms getting ready to sleep, Rory looks up and finds Tomas hanging uncertainly around his bedroom doorway.

"Rory?"

"What, Tomas?"

"Is… is _anything_ you told me true?" His eyes are wide. Hopeful. When Rory doesn't answer at once, Tomas says, "It's… crazy, right? And it's a lot more likely that you're just making fun of me than that you're _actually_ traveling through time."

"You already knew I have visitors," Rory reminds him. "You figured it out yourself."

"Yea," Tomas admits. "But…"

The silence stretches out.

"You're not just laughing at me for being stupid and believing you?"

Rory goes over and hugs his brother. Tomas squirms. "I'm not lying," he promises. "Okay?"

"…okay."

They hug for a moment longer, and then Rory pushes Tomas toward bed. He watches Tomas until he disappears into the room next door, and makes a mental note to try and spend more time with Tomas from here on out.


	203. Chapter 203

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't read Visiting the Future yet, you should probably go read that one before continuing with this fic. :)

Jeanne misses a year while she's in the future. She'd figured that was how it would work, since they'd physically travelled to the future, instead of going for a visit. She doesn't mind missing a year. It had seemed like a reasonable price to pay for a year with her visitors and her family.

But then she comes home, and learns how sick her father has gotten in her absence.

He's on his deathbed, he's  _ dying _ , and it doesn't help Jeanne at all to know that he's going to live on past his death. Jeanne tries not to be selfish. She tries to remember that he's going to be well again, he's going to have a second life with Maman and with Haytham. He'll have Geraldine and Grace, and…

And…

And he's leaving  _ Jeanne _ .

"I'm sorry," she says, the first time she comes home to find him confined to bed, sick and dying. "I'm sorry I went away for so long."

Today is a bed day, Maman had warned Jeanne before leading her in. Papa touches her arm gently and shakes his head, but his breathing is labored and he cannot speak.

"I…" Jeanne squeezes her eyes shut and feels tears leaking out. She needs Papa to know she hadn't just abandoned him when his sickness got worse. She wants… so, so badly, she wants to tell him everything about where she's been and what she'd been doing. But she can't and it's  _ killing her, it's fucking killing her _ —

Jeanne stays until Papa drifts off to sleep, face drawn from some bone deep pain. Then she leaves, crying, and goes to find her mother.

"Oh," Maman says, when she sees Jeanne's red eyes. "Darling." And she hugs Jeanne tight as she starts to cry in earnest.

"I wasn't here," Jeanne says. "And he's—he's so  _ sick _ ."

"It's alright," Maman says. "I can't pretend I know what you were doing—I assume it was some sort of Templar business?"

Jeanne hesitates, then nods. She feels terrible lying to her mother right now, but what else is she going to say?

"Then I'm sure your father understands as well," Maman says softly. "He loves you very dearly, Jeanne. He knows you'd never choose to leave him alone."

Jeanne sniffs and wipes at her face. "Where's Rory?" she asks. She's feeling a little desperate by now—Rory had been twenty one during that year in the future, and he's twenty three now. She can tell him everything, how terrible she feels about missing Papa's illness, and he'll understand.

"He's… not here," Maman says. "He and Shay had an argument a few months ago, and I don't think he'll be coming back any time soon."

Jeanne calls him several very rude things (Maman frowns but doesn't argue). "How can he  _ still  _ have such a problem with Templars?" Jeanne demands. "After James, how can he—"

"Who?" Maman asks.

Damn the timeline. Damn spoilers. Damn everything that keeps Jeanne from telling her mother everything that happened during the last year.

She's truly, honestly, half a breath away from just telling her mother everything anyway, when Matthew appears suddenly at her shoulder. Jeanne is briefly disappointed that it's not Rory, and then she remembers that he'd left. Then she's sharply, viciously glad. Matthew says, "Did you just get back too?"

"Yes," Jeanne says hoarsely. "And Papa's dying."

"What was that, Jeanne?" her mother asks.

"Nothing," Jeanne whispers. After a year with her visitors, she's half forgotten that they're usually invisible to everyone else. Unseen by her mother, Matthew steps closer and hugs Jeanne. It's exactly what she needs—a visitor. A friend. Someone to understand. "I'm alright, Maman. I just… need to think."

There's a loud thump from upstairs, and all three of them look up. There's a second noise, like something shattering.

"Take your time," Maman says. "I should go see what Tomas broke this time."

Jeanne waits for her to vanish upstairs before whispering to Matthew, "I should have been with him."

"You were."

"In  _ this  _ time."

"Now you will be," Matthew says. "Right?"

"Yea." She hugs him back. "Thanks, Matthew."

They stand there for a little while, and Jeanne is insanely grateful that he's there to comfort her. "Matthew?" she says, after a moment.

"Yes?"

"Maman said Rory went to the Homestead. Are you there too?"

"On my way."

"Well, when you get there," Jeanne says, "Kick his ass a little for me, will you?"


	204. Chapter 204

They decide to do it drunk.

"I don't…" Matthew doesn't quite look at Jeanne. "I'm not— _ great  _ when I'm drunk. Performance wise, I mean."

She's on the other side of the room, hunting for the alcohol she's just announced she'd brought with her. Matthew can't be sure (because his own eyes are firmly fixed on the ground) but he thinks she isn't looking at him, either. "This isn't about trying to impress me," she points out. "This is about… about what we're going to get out of it."

"Who we're going to get out of it," Matthew corrects quietly.

"Who," Jeanne agrees. "Right." She comes back with a bottle of something that smells, and sits next to him on the bed. "You've talked to Elena about this, haven't you?"

"Of course." She hadn't exactly been  _ thrilled  _ with the idea of Matthew and Jeanne having a child together, but… but she has her chance at a child. He'd left her pregnant after that strange, impossible year they'd all spent in her time. She may well have a chance at their child.

Matthew will never meet that child in person. He'd never realized how much he wants to be a father. Not until he missed his chance.

And he hadn't exactly been planning on bringing it up to Jeanne. But a month back they'd both been sent after the same piece of Eden, and (when the damn thing turned out to be frustratingly impossible to track down) ended up in a tavern, catching up and talking late into the night.

Jeanne had mentioned first that she's always regretted that she'll never be a mother. Matthew had told her everything that had happened with Elena. And then they'd looked at each other, and Matthew had thought… why not? And he could see the same look forming on Jeanne's face, and then—and then they'd both made hurried excuses and run off as fast as they could.

"Did you talk to Jacob?" Matthew asks.

She nods. Doesn't say anything else. Obviously this isn't a subject she wants to dwell on. Well, that's fair enough. Matthew knows that if he sits here thinking about Elena, he'll never be able to go through with this. And he… he does want to go through with this. Because he wants a child, as badly as Jeanne does, and neither of them will ever be able to find someone that  _ understands  _ that. The beauty of falling in love with a visitor, someone far away and impossible, someone they'd never have loved under normal circumstances. Jacob had died when Jeanne was in her teens, and Matthew knows Elena will be born centuries after his own passing. So it is beautiful that any of them has found love at all, but—but it's horrible, too. They'll never know the simple joy of coming home to the person they love, never have children, never grow old together.

Matthew can't imagine doing this with anyone  _ but  _ Jeanne. He can barely imagine doing it with her.

He reaches for the bottle in silence, and she passes it over without a word.


	205. Chapter 205

Jeanne is in Paris when the baby arrives. She's been there for months already, because—because she can't do this at home. Not when she hasn't even told her mother she's pregnant, much less who the father is, or any of the circumstances behind the baby. Obviously she'll have to tell her eventually, but she's not sure she won't just break down and explain visiting if she does it now, she's  _ that  _ emotional. And obviously she can't know about visiting yet, she has to wait until after she dies to learn about all that.

At least (and Jeanne feels awful for thinking this) her father has already passed on. She knows she'd never have been able to lie to him about something so big.

"Jeanne?"

She's found a safe place to deliver, somewhere small but clean, somewhere out of the way enough that it should pass under the radar of both templars and assassins. She'd given them a false name when she arrived, and invented a dead husband to explain why she is alone. No one knows her here, and she does not plan to stay. It is a good enough lie to last through the baby's birth.

The only people that could know her name here are her visitors, and Jeanne looks up, hoping for Jacob. She can feel the first pangs of labor beginning, and she  is afraid does not want to be alone. But it's not Jacob, it's Matthew, and she thinks that at least he has as much right as anyone else to be here.

The look of surprise on his face is almost funny, and Jeanne is grateful for the distraction. "Do you want to do this?" she asks.

"What—" If she wasn't so scared herself, she would have laughed at the sound of his voice going high and nervous. "Give birth?"

"My father gave birth to me," Jeanne says cheerfully. "You'd be continuing a proud tradition."

"I—you're not—" He drops his voice to a whisper. "You're not serious, are you?"

"Of course I'm not," Jeanne says. She looks away from him for a moment, then back. "Maybe… maybe if things get really bad. Just for a little while."

Maybe it is her own nerves showing that makes him nod and sit down next to her. And the next few hours are sort of a blur, afterwards, but Jeanne will always remember that Matthew is there for the whole thing. That he does not leave, does not complain, does nothing to make the whole process harder than it needs to be. He's not Jacob, but he's exactly who she needs in that moment.

Her next clear impression is the feel of a baby in her arms, and the sound of Matthew laughing in mingled relief and delight. "Look!" he says, leaning over her and the baby. "Look, Jeanne! Our baby!"

"He's—" She has not stopped to consciously consider what their child would look like, but the baby exceeds every possible expectation. "He's  _ real _ ."

"Where are you?" Matthew asks excitedly. "And when? I want to be here, if I'm not already in your future. I probably am, it's been more than nine months since… well, you know. But we should meet in person. We need to—there's so much we need to talk about."

Jeanne nods—neither of them is under the impression that this will be an easy child to raise, not with their unusual circumstances. But in this moment she is sure, at least, that he has two parents that love him absolutely. It's certainly not the worst start a child has ever had in life. But when she tells him the date and where she is, the smile slides off his face and he looks at her in absolute horror. "That was  _ you _ ?" he demands. "That was—that was him?" And the look of equal horror he gives the baby makes Jeanne clutch him instinctively closer.

"What's wrong?" she demands. "Matthew, what's going to happen?"

"It—I didn't think it was you."

"That's not  _ helping _ ," Jeanne snaps. "Matthew!"

"The Parisian assassins have always been…" He visibly struggles for the right words. "Assholes," he finishes at last. "No one really wants to come out and say it, but they're basically assholes. They do what they want and we… mostly try to keep them from interfering in affairs outside of France. But a week or so ago I heard a rumor that they'd taken to kidnapping—that they'd taken a newborn from a templar—"

"No—"

"Unless there's another templar about to give birth, they must have… must have taken…" He reaches out one hand and rests it on their son. Jeanne watches him tremble, and does her best not to do the same.

"There has to be a way to get him back," she says. "They're assassins—you're an assassin. You can deal with them, can't you? Because the only alternative is for me to kill every assassin in France to get to him, and I  _ will,  _ Matthew, I swear I will."

"Calm down, Jeanne!"

"Calm?" She shouts it at him, so loudly that the infant in her arms starts to make little noises of complaint. She drops her voice but remains angry. "How can I be calm when you've just given me news like that?"

But Matthew doesn't get the chance to answer. In that moment, there is a scuffling noise from the rooftop, and then three men in robes are bursting in through the window. Jeanne  _ wants  _ to fight, she needs to defend herself and her son but she's just given birth. There is only so much she can do, and when the nearest man rips her child from her arms, it stuns her long enough that she can't even fight back.

She doesn't know why they don't kill her. Maybe they know that watching them escape through the window  _ with her son _ is a different kind of death. She glances helplessly at Matthew, and sees him looking back at her, trapped in his role as visitor. He can do no more to help than she can, and he's far enough into the future that the story of the kidnapping will have time to cross an ocean and make its way to him.

They can do nothing, and their baby is gone.


	206. Chapter 206

It’s strange for Rory to meet with Arno in his own time, after living with him for a year while he was in the future with Elena. Rory has to keep reminding himself that Arno has only met him once--he doesn’t have that year with Rory that Rory has with Arno.

Which sort of raises the question of why Arno had sent word for Rory to come all the way to Paris to see him. Rory holds off asking when he first arrives, out of a vague idea that it might be rude. Luckily, Arno seems eager to cut to the chase.

“I stole a baby.”

“What?”

Arno sort of half grins, but it’s a quick, nervous expression. “Well I mean--” he lowers his voice. “It wasn’t just me. And it was sort of Jacob’s idea.”

“Of course,” Rory says.

“Right,” Arno agrees. “Of course. But--look, in our defense, we stole a stolen baby.”

“I’m really not getting it,” Rory says.

Arno sighs heavily, and gestures for Rory to follow him into a back room. Rory does, although he’s still massively confused. The backroom is clean and tidy, almost sparse, and Rory’s eyes are drawn immediately to the basket in the corner where--God, there really is a baby there.

“It’s a long story,” Arno says. “But, ah--okay, so some of the assassins here are...kind of terrible people?”

Rory nods. He’s heard rumors that things in France haven’t exactly been stable since before the revolution.

“Some of them stole a baby,” Arno says. “From a Templar. They were pretty proud of themselves.” He scowls. “Jacob was visiting me, and we both agreed that the baby was better off with his parents than with kidnappers, so he suggested we steal the baby  _ back _ , and we did.”

“So what happened to the parents?” Rory asks. “I can’t help noticing the baby is still with you.”

“I couldn’t find them,” Arno admits. “I looked, I really did, but I have no idea what happened to them. And now I have to find somewhere for this baby to stay, and I thought of you.”

“Me?” Rory repeats. “I--no. Why me?”

“You’re a visitor,” Arno says. “Not mine, but...I don’t know. I trust you.”

He sounds so sincere that Rory flushes a little. “Thank you,” he says. “But you must know people that would be better at taking care of a kid than I would.”

Arno shakes his head. “I wanted it to be an assassin,” he says. “Or maybe a Templar. Someone that could keep him safe.”

“So why not Maman?” Rory asks. “Or Connor? You could have picked one of your visitors.”

“They don’t know I’m a visitor yet,” Arno says. “How would I explain that?”

“Matthew then,” Rory says. “He’s an assassin and a visitor. Or Jeanne, if you want a Templar. And she’s been baby crazy since--” He stops himself before he can say ‘since Elena got pregnant,’ in case Arno hasn’t gotten there yet.

“I don’t really know them,” Arno says. “At least I’ve met you once.”

“But--”

Arno walks over to the baby, gathers him up from his basket, and carries the child back to Rory. “Hold him,” he says. “Please.”

So Rory does, reluctantly. The baby is warmer than he’d expected, and heavier. Not a newborn, but still very young and very small. He looks up at Rory and gives him a big, gummy smile.

“You could keep him yourself,” Rory says, after a long pause. Oddly, he doesn’t seem able to tear his eyes away from the baby’s face. There’s something vaguely familiar there, and it has Rory feeling strange and protective.

“I wish I could,” Arno says. “But I’m afraid of what will happen when the original kidnappers figure out who stole him the second time.”

Rory nods numbly.

“Will you take him?” Arno asks.

“I don’t know…”

The baby looks at him. His eyes are wide and trusting. Rory stares back. Arno watches them both.

“I think you do,” Arno says.

“Does he have a name?” Rory asks. “If I take him home with me, I can’t just call him Baby.”

“If his parents gave him a name, I didn’t exactly have a chance to learn it.”

That’s fair. “Should I give him one?”

Arno chuckles. “I think that would be a good idea.”

There’s a wall a foot or two behind Rory, and suddenly he finds himself leaning against it, shaking a little. It’s been just under a year since his time in the future. And there’s a lot he misses from that time, but he really, really misses being surrounded by people that care about him. He misses… (it’s stupid, it’s so stupid, he shouldn’t care like this)... he misses being loved.

Names are important, Rory really believes that. He wants to give the baby ( _ his  _ baby--fuck) a name that means something to him. But he can’t stop thinking about the baby’s missing parents, the Templars, and suddenly he knows what the baby should be called.

“Patrick James Cormac,” he says. “That’s the baby’s name.”

Patrick smiles wider.


	207. Chapter 207

Six months into the pregnancy, Matthew still won't touch her. It's starting to really worry Elena, the way he keeps his distance, barely looks at her, changes the subject when she mentions the baby. It hurts, but Elena does her best to understand. He's got a million reasons to feel conflicted about this child, not least of which is that he'll never meet him or her in person. They'd been  _ together _ when Elena finally conceived. She doubts they ever will be again.

So she lets him avoid the subject. She gets ready for the baby's arrival on her own. And then, all of a sudden, she snaps. Because if she were a  _ normal  _ woman, with a  _ normal  _ husband and a  _ normal  _ life, she'd be sitting with Matthew right now, shopping for cribs and babyproofing the house. But she's not. She's alone in the attic of the safe house she uses most often, trying to figure out if she'd be able to get to her child quickly enough in an emergency, or if she should set the child's things up downstairs (but there are  _ guns  _ downstairs). She's alone, and suddenly she can't believe how stupid she was to think that this is a good idea.

Having this baby won't make everything alright. It won't bring Matthew back to her. It won't make her life easier, more normal. She'll just be bringing a child into a hugely dangerous situation. She'll be condemning him or her to an assassin's life, and while Elena hadn't hesitated to choose that for herself, how can she force it on a baby?

She can't talk to Matthew about this. She  _ couldn't _ , even if he was here. Because he wants to pretend the baby doesn't exist (he obviously regrets it, he's  _ ashamed _ of the baby, ashamed of Elena, maybe). Elena calls her dad instead.

She starts crying as soon as she hears his familiar voice say hello, and she spills out the whole story without any kind of preamble. "I can't keep the baby," she says at last. "What was I thinking? I'm not a mother! I can't—"

"Elena." He sounds calm. "You won't be a mother until you have the baby. That's how these things work."

"Dad…" she sniffs. "You don't have to be so literal."

"Just trying to lighten the mood." But his voice turns serious almost immediately. "Elena, I understand that you're going through something really difficult. I can't say I know what it's like to be in your shoes. But you want this baby, I  _ know  _ you do. Remember, when you told me you'd finally managed to get pregnant? You were so happy, honey. Try and remember that."

"But that was when I thought Matthew wanted us to have a child too," Elena says. "I didn't expect to be doing this alone."

"First of all," her dad says. "You really need to talk to Matthew about this."

"He doesn't want to…"

" _ Make  _ him talk," her dad says firmly. "This is something important. But even if it turns out Matthew has suffered a weird personality transplant that makes him not care about you or the baby—" Elena  _ almost  _ laughs. "You'll still be fine. I mean, I raised you single handedly, and you turned out fine. Not just fine, you turned out  _ amazing _ . I know you'll be a great mom."

"Dad."

"What?"

She doesn't  _ want  _ to laugh, she'd called about something serious. But just talking to her dad has always helped her feel better when things are bad, and she can already feel her mouth fighting her, trying to smile. "Did you just make a joke about being one handed?"

"Maybe."

" _ Dad _ …"

 

There’s silence on the phone for a minute. Elena struggles to gather her thoughts, pulling things together. Her dad waits her out, patiently.

"Can I come home?" she asks. "Maybe just until the baby is born? I want to stay with you for a while."

"Of course," her dad says. "Do you really think you have to ask? You know you can come home any time."

"I know," Elena says. "But—thanks anyway. I'll see you soon."

She hangs up but doesn't move for a while. Everything just seems hard. Getting up. Moving. Making plans. Doing… anything.

After a while, she feels someone leaning against her, and looks over to see Matthew. She's not sure if she's glad or disappointed. "Hey," Matthew says, touching her gently on the shoulder. He sounds startled. "You're crying."

"Brilliant deduction," Elena mutters, half turning away from him. "Next you'll point out that I'm pregnant."

He goes still and silent at the reminder, and pulls away a little. "I don't—sorry. I didn't mean to upset you."

"Well you have." She shoves him away a little. "I'm carrying our  _ baby _ , Matthew, and you're acting like it's something bad. You won't look at me, you won't talk about… about him or her or whatever. Why would you do that if you didn't 'mean to upset' me?"

"I…" Matthew very rarely gets angry. They've known each other… forever, practically. Elena's earliest memory is of Matthew visiting her when she was being held captive by Abstergo, and he's been her closest visitor ever since. In all that time, they've only ever fought,  _ really  _ fought a few times in their lives. But he sounds angry now. "Not everything is about you!"

"I didn't say it was!" She gets up, struggling a little with the still unaccustomed weight of the baby. "But we both decided to have this baby. I would appreciate at least a little bit of support!"

"Do you know what I would  _ appreciate _ ?" he demands, springing to his feet as well. The way he speaks makes his voice sound almost mocking. "I would  _ appreciate  _ it if I was allowed to have a baby. When you give birth, I'll have fathered two children, and I will never be able to hold either one!" He points at Elena, almost angry. "I'll die  _ centuries  _ before this child. Jeanne's baby?" A flat, cutting gesture with his hand. "Gone. Kidnapped. God knows where he is, but it's been six months and it hasn't stopped hurting. It's not fucking fair, and I—" His face goes through something painful and sharp.

"I'm tired," he finishes, soft and sad. "I'm tired of being disappointed. I'm tired of failing my children."

"I had no idea," Elena says. "Matty, why didn't you tell me?"

"Because you were happy. I didn't want to ruin that."

"You could have told me anyway," Elena says. "I'm your…" but she trails off, hesitating. What is she, to Matthew? They'd been boyfriend and girlfriend once, but they've been together fifteen years by now, and this word seems too shallow to sum up everything they've been through. But it's not something they've ever really talked about—they've simply moved on with their relationship as best they can. "I can't be happy if you're not," she says at last. "So let's sit down… and let's talk."

And they do talk. And they cry. And they figure absolutely nothing out, because this is not the kind of problem that can be solved in a single day. But as difficult and painful as this is, at least it's a start. Maybe things will be better by the time the baby comes.


	208. Chapter 208

Elena goes into labor on a visit, and maybe that's why everything goes so wrong. She's visiting Matthew, but that's the only lucky thing about it (she can't  _ imagine  _ how much worse everything would be if she'd been visiting Marcello, for example, who is a great friend but not who she wants in an emergency like this). She feels like she's being ripped in two, and yes, she knows that giving birth is always painful but this is a different kind of pain entirely. It's something that goes beyond the merely physical, something that tears at her on some deeper level.

It hurts so much that her vision blurs and shakes, and she doesn't know exactly what's going on around her. She sort of knows that she's lying on something soft, and she's very aware of Matthew nearby. His hand on her, his voice in her ear. But she can't believe the pain, she can't  _ stand  _ the pain, and it seems to go on and on forever. She doesn't know how long it's supposed to take to have a baby but this feels like years.

And then she hears the baby cry, and Elena sags back, panting and slick with sweat. There's a pause, and then Matthew crouches down next to her. He's holding the infant in his arms, hastily wrapped in a scrap of blanket pulled from who knows where. Elena's heart stutters and skips a beat at the sight of them, father and child. At that moment, they are the two people she loves most in the entire world. 

 

“It's a girl,” Matthew whispers. His voice is hoarse, and barely audible over their daughter’s heartfelt, screaming sobs. He looks down at her, a curious, unreadable mix of emotions on his face, and cradles her close, soothing her until she quiets. Elena watches, aching to hold the baby, but she stays quiet. She can still feel a tight pressure to  _ push  _ from somewhere inside her, and she thinks vaguely of placentas and afterbirth. It's very uncomfortable. Besides, neither of them knows when Matthew will get to hold their daughter again.

“Name her,” Elena says softly. 

“Are you sure?”

Elena nods, and Matthew looks down at the baby. “Joy,” he says. “It's...I can't think of anything else right now.”

Elena has half a second after that--just enough time to reach out, hoping for her turn to hold...to hold Joy (and it's an amazing feeling, to finally have a name for the little person she's carried for nine months). And then her visit ends abruptly. 

She's back at home. 

And Joy is nowhere to be seen. 

Elena  _ screams,  _ terror and loss surging up in her all at once. Footsteps come running toward her, and Elena sees her dad leaning over her, looking more concerned than she has ever seen him before. "The baby's coming?" he asks, and it's half a question and half a statement, and Elena shakes her head in answer.

"No," she says. "No, dad, she already came—"

There are more people in the house, and Elena hears more voices soon. The pain is less now than it had been before, it's better now that she's not visiting, and eventually she is able to calm down and breathe and listen to what those voices are saying.

"Elena, baby…" she feels her dad's hand on hers, squeezing. She squeezes back. "I know it's hard, but you have to keep pushing, or this baby is never going to come out.

"What?" That doesn't make any sense. "No, dad, she already—I did it, I—" it strikes her then that  _ her baby is gone _ , she'd just vanished when Elena's visit ended. And that's when the fear comes. It's worse than the pain, because… because she doesn't know what happens when someone gives birth on a visit. She'd been confident that her baby would be safe while she was pregnant, because… because that's how visiting works, somehow. Jeanne and Rory have two brothers that aren't visitors, and they'd been safe when their mother visited, and Evie’s daughters had never been harmed by it. But… but Aveline and Evie had been home, in their own times, when they'd actually given birth.

Elena had been visiting and  _ what does that mean for her baby _ ? Where is she, is she safe and with Matthew, or is she just… undone, unable to live in another time without her mother?

People keep telling her to push, so Elena pushes. She's not sure what the point is, she's already had (and lost) the baby. But they won't leave her alone so she keeps pushing, and suddenly she hears a baby crying, and when it is wrapped in soft blankets and handed over to her, Elena sees that she's had a son.

She's had twins.

She stares at him, uncomprehending, for several seconds before reality sinks in. This one she gets to keep. He's safe, he's where and when he's supposed to be. But she can't  _ quite  _ be grateful for that, not until she knows what happened to her daughter.

"Dad—" she turns and finds him still at her side. "Dad, where's Connor?"

"He's on a mission right now," her dad says.

"Then call him," Elena says. "Please. I have to ask him something important."

-//-

After Elena's visit ends, Matthew sits there in a daze, holding the daughter he shouldn't possibly have.

Except that Joy is here. So obviously it is possible.

"Hey!"

Tomas comes bursting into the room without knocking (he never knocks). He's been staying at the homestead for a month, repairing his ship after a bad storm and generally getting into trouble. His eyes land on the baby and he grins. "Where did she come from?"

"Um—" He hadn't expected this, and he doesn't have an explanation ready. "I just found her."

"You found a baby in your bedroom?" Tomas laughs. "That's so weird! Is she yours? Did you get some assassin pregnant and then she climbed in through the window to leave it for you?"

He shrugs. There's no way he'll ever be able to explain this. Better to just claim absolute confusion. "I don't know."

"Well are you going to keep her?"

Matthew pulls the baby closer. "Yes."

"Aren't you even going to try and find the mother?"

Sure. She's a couple hundred years in the future and probably panicking because her baby is gone. "I'll look," Matthew says feebly.

"Fair enough," Tomas says. He and Matthew both look down at the baby. "Do you need a woman to feed her? My wife will probably know someone."

"Yes," Matthew says. Another thing he hasn't thought of. He hadn't expected—Elena was supposed to… "Thank you."

Tomas goes banging downstairs to tell everyone else, and Matthew touches a shaking finger to Joy’s face, just to check she's real. It seems obscenely wrong that he should have her. Elena wants this child so much more than he does, but she'd lost her. And Jeanne--the mother of Matthew’s unknown son--has lost the child she so desperately wanted as well. How does he, of all people, deserve this?

 

“I'm sorry you got stuck with me,” he whispers to Joy. She stares up at him, tiny and helpless and perfect--she looks straight into his heart, and from that moment she takes it for herself. “But I'm so glad you're here.” His words are a wet, incomprehensible mess of grateful tears. 

-//-

"Matthew told everyone that he'd found her," Connor says. His voice is stiff and uncertain the way it always is on the phone. "I never thought she was his daughter, but I'm starting to realize just how complicated your group made things. I can't say for sure that she was yours, but—I always thought it was strange how quickly he came to love her. Looking at it now… I'm not sure he would have reacted quite the same way if she wasn't his."

Elena sags back against the pillows on her bed, calming at last. If Matthew has their daughter, everything is okay. He'll take care of her. She'll grow up happy and loved and well taken care of. She knows Matthew will be as good to Joy—as Elena will be to their son.

"Elena?" Beyond the stiffness, she can hear him warming up. It's hard to tell with Connor, but Elena thinks he sounds… happy.

"Yea?"

"Is it alright if I come and see him?"

"Of course it is," Elena says. "You're his grandfather, aren't you?"

He sort of laughs, and Elena feels herself smiling as well. "Did you name him yet?"

"I…" she looks down at the boy. Matthew had named their daughter Joy because of his happiness, but that's not the big emotion Elena feels when she looks at their son. It's there, of course, along with a whole stew of other feelings she'll have to put a name to later. But mostly, she's thinking that they're all going to have to be very brave in this family, split up as they are, with so many centuries between them. 

"Leo," she says. "He's Leo."


	209. Chapter 209

These days, when Arno can't find Jacob, he goes to Elena's room to find him. It's not Elena that Jacob is interested in, although they get on well enough. But Jacob is nearly obsessed with Leo, and it seems… strange for Jacob to be so interested. Arno knows Jacob well enough to recognize when he's worried about something, and he's clearly concerned for Leo now. Arno just doesn't know  _ why _ .

Today he finds Jacob by Leo's crib, as expected, tapping something on his phone while Leo sleeps. Arno leans against the wall next to Jacob, and sort of elbows him to draw his attention. "Babysitting again?" he asks.

"Elena went out to run some errands," Jacob says.

"You know…" Arno hesitates. "You could let someone else watch Leo while Elena's out. I'm sure Evie or Desmond or Connor would love some time with their grandson."

"It's not like it's any trouble," Jacob says.

Arno nods, gathering his thoughts. Eventually, he asks, "Is there something wrong, Jacob?"

"Wrong?"

"Yes."

"I'm fine," Jacob says. "Nothing's wrong."

"You're spending a lot of time in here," Arno says. "Are you… are you starting to change your mind about having kids, or something? Is this a mid-second-life crisis?"

Jacob laughs, but it's not the easy, carefree sound Arno had been hoping for. "No," he says. "I'm happy with my life."

"But something's going on," Arno presses.

"I'm  _ fine _ ," Jacob tries to insist.

"Come on, Jacob," Arno says. "I know you better than that. Something's been bothering you over the past couple of months, and I really wish you would talk to me."

"Someone has to take care of Leo," Jacob says.

"He has a mother," Arno says. "Grandparents. A huge family, and all of them are going to help keep him safe. He's as safe as any assassin's child can be, Jacob."

"That's not what I mean," Jacob says. "I mean—it's important to keep him safe, obviously, but…"

He bites his lip, uncharacteristically nervous. Arno nods encouragingly, pretty sure by this point that they're getting close to what's really bothering Jacob.

"What's he going to do without his sister?" Jacob says. "He's supposed to—who's going to be there for him?"

"This isn't you and Evie," Arno says gently. "You'll always have her."

"But Leo lost Joy," Jacob says. "He has a twin sister that he's never going to meet. They don't even live in the same century, Arno! She's been dead for years and years and years—"

_ "Jacob— _ " He grabs Jacob's hand and squeezes. "Leo will be fine. And Joy will be fine. Most people don't have twins, and we manage to get through life."

"But it's different," Jacob says. "Leo has a twin, and…look, if Evie and I had been separated at birth, I'd  _ know  _ I was missing something. Okay? Even if I never met her, I would know that she was supposed to be with me, and… I'd spend my whole life missing her."

"Yes," Arno says patiently. "But you do know about her. How can you be sure what you would be like if you didn't?"

" _ I would know _ ," Jacob insists. "And Leo will know Joy isn't there. And he'll miss her, and I just want to try and make sure he's okay."

Arno sighs, and gives up. He squeezes Jacob's hand and nods a little. "Well," he says. "If Leo doesn't have his sister, at least he has you looking out for him."


	210. Chapter 210

Elena is twelve when her little brother is born, and she's not quite sure what to think of him. He's not the first baby in this family. Elena only barely remembers when Geraldine was born, but she'd been a little older when Grace came, and she remembers that clearly.

She thinks James is smaller, somehow. And all sort of… soft. He's sound asleep in his crib, mouth open, tiny chest rising and falling as Elena stands there and watches him. Right now, she can't believe that he's ever going to be a real, grown up person. He's too small.

So part of Elena is fiercely concerned with his wellbeing—he's her baby brother, and he's absolutely helpless while  _ she's  _ training to be an assassin so it's her job to take care of him, obviously. But then a different part of her is twelve years old and really concerned that she's going to spend the next couple of years changing his diapers and getting drooled on, and that's  _ really  _ not cool.

The back of her neck itches, and Elena looks up eagerly to see which of her visitors she gets to show off her brother to first. She's a little disappointed to see that it's a much older looking Rory—she'd been expecting someone her own age, because her visitors are almost  _ always  _ her own age, but this Rory is already an adult and he's probably seen James already.

He gives her that awkward half smile, the one that almost looks like he's saying sorry for visiting out of order. Elena half smiles back, because it's really not his fault. He can't control his visits any more than any of them can.

"What are you looking at?" Rory asks.

"James," Elena says, and his whole face just goes absolutely bloodless. Elena doesn't like it. "What's wrong?" she asks. "Rory?"

"Nothing," Rory says. "Why?"

"You look like you saw a ghost," Elena says.

"I'm fine," he says, too fast.

"Okay." Elena rolls her eyes. "Whatever. I'm going to go get some lunch, do you want anything?"

She's halfway to the door when she realizes he hasn't moved, or even said anything. Elena turns back, impatient, and sees that Rory has moved over to James's crib. From where she's standing, Elena can still see his face, and his expression makes her… worry, just a little. The way he's looking at James is complicated, happy and sad all at once.

"What are you doing?" she asks, a little louder than she means to.

"Nothing."

Elena is starting to suspect that every time Rory says  _ nothing _ , he's lying through his teeth. "Then can we go already?" she asks.

"Just a second," Rory murmurs. "I'm just… saying goodbye." He brushes his hand over James's tiny forehead, so light that it wouldn't have woken the baby even if he could feel Rory. His fingers linger for a moment over James's cheek, and Rory heaves a sigh. Then he nods, and pushes himself back from the crib, away from James.

"Rory?" Elena asks again, uncertainly.

"Let's go," he says, already halfway out of the room. Elena gives him a confused look, but follows without protest.

-//-

Aveline considers James from where she is sitting on the other side of the library. It's a beautiful room with wood floors and bay windows, absolutely packed full of bookshelves and comfortable chairs. It had been a surprise when they moved into this safehouse—their first since B-Team went back to their own times—and even though they could really use the space as an extra bedroom, no one had really argued hard in favor of getting rid of the books.

They'd argued for a while about how many people would end up sharing rooms, and then Shaun had announced he and Rebecca would be sleeping in the library ( _"Will we?"_ _"Yes, Rebecca, and it's going to be amazing."_ ) They'd dragged a mattress into the history section, which means the remaining bedrooms are pretty much exactly what they need to make everyone fit, and still leaves the rest of the library open for anyone else that wants to use it.

Not that James really seems to be using it now. He's sprawled sideways on a chair, pretending to read something and staring at Aveline. After a while, when Aveline decides she's tired of being watched, she calls him over.

James comes, reluctantly, and drops down on the far end of the couch from where Aveline sits. He looks distinctly unhappy, and the large bandage across one side of his face does nothing to help his gloomy expression.

"James," Aveline says. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he says, and Aveline doesn't need to know what he's lost recently to know that he's lying. It's all over his face, in his voice and his drooping, dejected posture.

"I don't think it's nothing," she says. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Sort of," James says. "But sort of no."

"Take your time."

And he does. Aveline has never really known him to hesitate before, he's not the kind that thinks things through before he speaks. This time, he sits on the other end of the couch, in absolute silence, for a very long time.

"Do you like Rory?" he asks at last.

"Of course I do," Aveline says. "He is my son."

James nods, somber. "Sometimes it feels like nobody likes him."

"That is definitely not true," Aveline says.

"Okay," James says. And then, all in a rush, he adds, “Because--because it's crazy but I really think I  _ loved  _ him, and I miss him so much more than I thought I would. I really…” He shivers. “I really wanted him to stay and everyone keeps looking at me like I should be glad he's gone but I'm  _ not _ .”

 

“I miss him too,” Aveline assures him. “Him and Jeanne. All the time.”

 

She waits for James to collect himself. It takes a while. 

"Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?"

"Sort of," James says. "But not really."

Again, Aveline has to be patient.

"What happened to him?" James asks.

His eyes are sharp and almost hungry, and Aveline suspects that this is what he's really been after all this time—closure.

"I can only speak for what he did with his life before I died," she says. "But Rory started to get better. He eventually softened toward Templars. Not that he ever liked them, and I doubt he fully trusted them. But I lived long enough to see him get close to Jeanne again." She smiles at the memory. "And he had a son."

" _ Did  _ he?" James asks. He seems to wrestle with his next question before asking, "Who was the mother?"

"Rory never told anyone," Aveline says. "I always suspected Jeanne knew, but it was difficult to tell for sure. Neither of them ever told me, and Patrick's mother was never in the picture."

James relaxes a little. "Patrick?" he says. "Is… was that Rory's son?"

Aveline nods. "Patrick James Cormac," she tells him, and James nods like that's all he needs to know. After that, he rarely brings Rory up again. Aveline is sure James hasn't forgotten Rory, but at least he seems satisfied with the way things have ended. In the days after this conversation, for the first time since Rory and the rest of B-Team went home, James starts smiling again.


	211. Chapter 211

"Mommy, look! Mommy, mommy!"

Elena lifts Leo into her lap, and he happily spreads his drawing out on top of the table. He'd gotten a box of 120 crayons from his grandpa for Christmas, and so his picture is much more colorful than the ones he usually makes. "That's  _ beautiful _ ," she tells him enthusiastically, and Leo beams at the praise.

"I drew us, mommy!" Leo points at two shapes that are just barely recognizable as people now that he's pointed it out. "That one's you."

"Why am I purple?" Elena asks.

"Because purple is the  _ best _ color," Leo says. "It tastes the best."

"Are you eating crayons?" Elena asks, mildly alarmed.

"No, mommy," Leo says. " _ Popsicles _ ."

"Purple popsicles taste the best?"

Leo nods, perfectly cheerful like she should have known he was talking about popsicles the whole time. It's been a very long Christmas, good but  _ long _ , and Elena is tired enough that she just nods and hugs him. As long as he's not actually eating crayons, that's fine. She points to the rest of the people in the picture. "Who else did you draw?"

"Grandpa and grandpa and grandma and great-grandpa and greatest-grandpa," Leo says, pointing at three of the people. Elena rolls her eyes fondly at 'greatest-grandpa.' Edward had come up with that one when Leo was just learning to talk, and he'd been over the moon when Leo picked it up and started saying it. Really, the poor kid almost has too many grandparents—he has Desmond and Connor (grandpa and grandpa), and Lucy (grandma), and Haytham and Edward (great-grandpa and greatest-grandpa). He's still young enough that he has trouble putting his socks on the right way, Elena is frankly amazed that he can keep track of his excessive amount of ancestors. 

Elena points to a pair of of stick figures that are a little way away from the others. “Who’s that?” she asks.

“Matty and Joy,” Leo says.

“What?” Elena says, and she’s not sure if she’s feeling shock right now or guilt. He shouldn’t know those names. Elena hasn’t told him about his father or his sister, because she’s not sure she could take the questions that would follow. How is she supposed to tell him he’ll never get to meet the rest of his family?

And here he is, spouting off their names like he  _ knows  _ them.

“Matty,” Leo repeats, pointing one sticky finger at the bigger stick figure. “And Joy.” He shifts his finger to the other one.

“Oh,” Elena says weakly. “Right.” And she lets him go rambling onto a new subject.

-//-

When she’s finally managed to put Leo to bed, Elena goes to find Connor. He’s working on something or other at the kitchen table, and after a minute or two he looks up at her and nods. “Elena,” he says.

“Can I ask you something?” she asks, and at his nod, she asks, “Have you been telling Leo about Matthew and Joy?”

He gives her a long, sad look. “No,” he says. “I had the impression that you didn’t want him to know about them until he’s older.”

“It’s not that I don’t  _ want  _ him to know,” Elena says. “I just--it would be confusing for him. For both of us, I guess, and…” she sighs, and shakes her head. “Nevermind.”

“Why did you want to know?” Connor asks.

“He mentioned them today,” Elena says. “And I thought it was odd.”

“Hmm,” Connor says. “If I had to guess, I would say Edward’s probably been talking about things he shouldn’t. Again.”

“Probably,” Elena agrees. It’s the most likely explanation, because Edward has never been any good at all at keeping secrets. But there’s something slightly off about that explanation, and Elena doesn’t realize what it is until much later that night. She’s curled up in bed, Leo tucked against her chest (there’s not enough bedrooms in the safehouse for him to have his own, and a part of Elena is selfishly glad), when she remembers that he’d said Matty, not Matthew.

He wouldn’t have heard that from Connor, or Edward, or anyone else. The only people that call him Matty are Elena, who’d picked up the habit when she was a little girl, and Joy, who says  _ Matty  _ instead of  _ Daddy _ . Elena is absolutely certain that she hasn’t mentioned Matthew to Leo. Which only leaves...

Her first thought is that Leo must be visiting his sister. It’s the only sensible explanation, really, and Elena very nearly wakes Leo up to ask him. But it’s very late at night, and he’s three years old, and she’s fairly sure that waking him up now isn’t going to get her anything but a grumpy toddler.

So Elena resigns herself to waiting for morning, and doesn’t sleep a wink.

-//-

Leo sleeps in late the day after Christmas, and the bedroom is already too bright when he finally wakes up. He inches forward and buries his face in Mommy’s shoulder, squeezing his sleepy eyes shut against the sun.

“Morning, baby,” Mommy says. She strokes his hair and waits until he’s ready to open his eyes and face the sun. He doesn’t like waking up, so it takes a little while, but finally he looks up and smiles at Mommy.

“Hi.”

Mommy smiles too, but she sort of looks worried. “Leo,” she says. “Do you want to tell me about Matty?”

He shrugs. “I like Matty,” he says. “He plays with me when I switch with Joy, but he doesn’t know we switch ‘cuz I never told him.”

“When you what?”

“I go where  _ she  _ is,” Leo says. “And she goes where  _ I  _ am.” Mommy stares at him. Leo starts to feel a little funny. “Am I in trouble?” he asks.

“No,” Mommy says. “Definitely not. But why didn’t you ever tell anyone that you’re, um… switching with Joy?”

“I thought everyone did that,” Leo says.

“No,” Mommy says. “You’re just very special, Leo.”

He smiles big at her.

“Will you do me a special favor?” Mommy asks. “A very big, important, special favor?”

Leo puffs up a little and nods.

Mommy sits up on the bed, and pulls Leo onto her lap so they’re looking at each other. “Are you listening?” she says.

Leo gives his ears a little tug. “Big ears,” he promises.

“Next time you see Matty, I want you to tell him that you’re Leo,” Mommy says. “Not Joy. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“And then give him a hug,” Mommy says, giving Leo one of her own. “I think he’d like that a lot.”

-//-

It’s a week later when Leo switches with Joy again. There’s a little warm place in his chest where he can sort of feel her all the time, but it gets stronger right before they switch. Leo wishes they could be in the same place sometimes, and play together, but it’s not so bad like this.

And then suddenly he’s somewhere else, and he’s Joy. Leo is used to this, it happens a  _ lot _ , and it’s easy to pretend to be Joy. He’s been doing it all his life. But Mommy told him to go say hi to Matty, so that’s what Leo does. Matty is watching Joy play with a few other kids, so Leo goes running over to him, and  _ throws  _ his arms around Matty’s legs in a really big hug. “Hi,” he says. “Mommy said to tell you I’m Leo.”

Matty looks down at him and he’s all confused for a second, but then he leans down and hugs Leo. “Well,” he says. “I guess we were overdue for some weirdness around here.”

He keeps hugging Leo really tight, like he doesn’t want to let go, just like Mommy does. 


	212. Chapter 212

Jeanne had never given a thought to children before her year in the future. But then Elena had gotten pregnant, and Jeanne had started to wonder what it would be like to have one of her own. And then, when she realized Matthew wanted a child as much as she did—a child in their own time—it had suddenly seemed positive. The little nagging feeling of loneliness that hasn't left Jeanne alone since coming home had gotten worse.

And why not? Her father is dead. Her wife lives only in visits and in the past. She has a brother that hates everything she believes in. Two more that could never understand what's going on in her life. Jeanne has no one to turn to, she has never in her life felt more  _ alone _ —

And then they take her baby from her, and Jeanne's world shatters. It's not fair, maybe, and it's not right, but she'd been counting so, so much on this baby. And now he's gone, and Jeanne is left with no one and nothing, just weeks and months of nightmares of what the Assassins might be doing to her son. She gets used to waking up in a cold sweat, breathless and shaking, from dreams of her son—alone, suffering, maybe dead.

What makes it even worse is  _ Rory _ . It's not fair. He's never shown an interest in women before, or fatherhood, and yet somehow, just when Jeanne loses her son, Rory appears with one of his own. Jeanne is viciously, desperately jealous every time she sees Patrick asleep on his father's lap, or crawling after him, or looking up at him with those big, adoring eyes—

Rory is too busy with Patrick to really notice Jeanne in pain, but their mother sees it. She notices almost at once, and after a few months of gentle prodding and dropped hints and (eventually) blunt questions, Jeanne gives in. A little. She can't explain everything, because visiting needs to stay a secret. But she can tell her mother the important part.

"I was going to have a baby," she says, voice cracking. "And… I lost him."

The two of them are sitting on the porch—Jeanne is cleaning her weapons and her mother is babysitting. Philippe brings his two children to stay at the house most afternoons, while he and his wife are busy at the warehouse, and Rory had left Patrick there while he headed downtown to meet a contact. Philippe's kids run shrieking through the front yard, chasing each other and tripping over their own feet, while Patrick fusses in his grandmother's lap. It's a beautiful, bright sunny day, but Jeanne can't feel it. It's been months, and she can't drag herself away from the tiny room in France where she'd so briefly had her son.

The look on her mother's face is more understanding than Jeanne would have expected, and that helps. Jeanne doesn't want to be pitied, she wants to be understood—and her mother, it seems, does understand.

Patrick—who can't possibly understand any of what's going on around him—leans over to Jeanne. "No sad!" he says sternly. "No  _ sad _ !"

He looks so genuinely distressed that Jeanne cracks a little smile, just for him. Patrick always makes her feel strange, sad and lonely and somehow even a little bit better, all at the same time. Every time she sees him, she starts thinking about how her son would have been just about the same age, if he hadn't been taken away.


	213. Chapter 213

The funny thing about this piece of Eden isn't that they don't know what it does—that's normal. Desmond can't remember the last time they ran across a piece of Eden and  _ did  _ know it's purpose. No, the funny thing about this particular piece is that it seems to repulse some of them, while others—Desmond among them—just…like holding it.

Grace says it makes her ill when she holds it. James whines whenever he's in the same room. Shaun gets even more sarcastic than usual when he sees it, which Desmond recognizes is his way of showing that he's upset. Rebecca's usual upbeat attitude just evaporates around it, and Clay has started making offhand comments about chucking it into a lake.

"It's not that bad," Elena says. She peers curiously at the piece of Eden where it rests in her hand. It's a surprisingly heavy metal bar, no more than three inches long and half an inch wide, almost translucent with thin golden veins shot through the inside. "I mean it's a piece of Eden so it has to be bad news, obviously, but it doesn't make me want to run screaming in the other direction."

"Me neither," Desmond agrees. "But it's making some of the others nervous. I won't mind seeing it leave the house."

"Sage is coming to pick it up this afternoon, isn't it?" Elena asks.

"He should be here pretty soon," Desmond agrees. "He texted me that he was on his way a little while ago—"

Their conversation ends abruptly as Leo comes toddling into the room on his shaky little legs. He starts reaching up for Elena, but then he sees the piece of Eden she's holding, falls back onto his diapered rear end, and immediately bursts into tears. Elena quickly hands the piece off to Desmond, and hurries to carry Leo out of the room. Desmond can track their progress from the very audible sound of Leo's continued crying. He frowns down at the piece of Eden. It  _ still  _ doesn't bother him, but he is starting to get seriously irritated with how this thing bugs the people he cares about.

When Sage shows up about twenty minutes later, Desmond warns him right away that there's a chance he's not going to like this piece. Sage stops in the doorway, sort of squints at the thing when Desmond holds it up for him to see, and then grins. "Man," he says. "Where did you find one of  _ these _ ?"

"What—you know what it is?" Desmond asks. Sage takes it and starts turning it over in his hands.

"Sure," Sage says. "A lot of the other sages keep them around to talk to themselves. I used to see these things pretty often before they decided to cut off all contact with me after Juno's death."

"They use it to… talk to themselves?"

"You know how people can't visit themselves?" Sage asks.

"Sure."

Sage holds up the piece of Eden. "This thing lets you do it."

"Oh God," Desmond says. "Don't tell Ezio."

"If it's been bothering people, that's probably why. As far as I know, it only works with people that are visitors already. With other people, it just keeps trying to connect to the part of their brain or whatever that lets them visit. Only they aren't visitors, so there's nothing to connect to, and it's just really uncomfortable."

"Huh," Desmond says. Suddenly, he's curious about what this piece of Eden can do. Not curious the way Ezio undoubtedly would have been, but curious nonetheless. "How does it work?"

Only Sage doesn't get a chance to answer, because as soon as Desmond asks the question, he suddenly finds himself somewhere else. The piece of Eden flashes red hot in his hand for a second or two, then fades back to room temperature. Desmond winces a bit from the pain, but tries to hide it as he looks around the dingy little room where he's suddenly appeared.

It's been…at  _ least  _ three decades since he was last here, but the stink of stale beer that clings to everything brings him right back to his time here. It had been his first bartending job, at a dive in a sketchy corner of New York City. Desmond hadn't even been twenty one yet, he'd just been a desperate teenager with fake ID and too many things to run away from. He'd come here after his awkward night with Rosemary that had—unknown to Desmond until much,  _ much  _ later—led to Sage's conception.

And he's here again. Wow. This… really isn't a part of his life he would have chosen to visit if he'd had a say.

The bar is almost completely empty, because it's the kind of place no one really goes to unless they're too drunk to care where they are. Desmond slips into an empty seat at the far end of the bar, and tries not to stare at the teenage version of himself standing about fifteen feet away with his back to Desmond. He's rubbing at the back of his neck in an absentminded sort of way, like he's just felt a visitor arrive but doesn't know enough to recognize the feeling.

Then the younger Desmond turns around, sees his older self, and drops everything he's holding. All color drains from his face, and his eyes widen in fear. For a second, Desmond is afraid his younger self has recognized him (and how would  _ that  _ screw with the timeline?) but then the kid takes a breath and seems to calm a little.

"S—sorry," he says, with a shaky laugh. "It's just…the light's bad here, and you kind of looked like my dad for a second."

Well, that's fair. Desmond has long since accepted the resemblance between himself and his father, but he imagines it would be a bit of a shock to his younger self. The kid's still staring at him in nervous anticipation, so Desmond offers his best dad-joke-smile and says, "My kids tell me the same thing."

His younger self half smiles, and almost laughs—at least he looks a little more comfortable than he had a minute ago.

"Right," he says. "So—sorry, did you want a drink, or something?"

"Uh—" It's been decades since Desmond worked here, but he doesn't have to remember all the details to know there's probably nothing worth drinking in this particular bar. And anyway, he's only visiting—there's really no point in drinking. "I'm just killing time while I wait for a friend."

His younger self shrugs. "I get paid whether you buy something or not, and it's not like there's anyone else waiting for your seat." He gestures around at the empty bar.

"Yea," Desmond says. "Guess not."

There's a minute or two of silence. Desmond gives his younger self a careful onceover—he sees the slump in his shoulders, the shadows behind his eyes—and it just hits him that this kid used to be  _ him _ .

"It gets better," Desmond says quietly.

"What does?"

"Everything," Desmond says, and he just honestly cannot stop himself from smiling. He's got a pretty good life by now. He's got a huge, sprawling family of people he cares for deeply, and who care for him as well. The dad he has now is nothing like the father that had terrified him so much as a child. He's got a wife who is so much more than he deserves, and three children that make him feel like everything he's gone through in his life so far is worthwhile. He has purpose with the assassins, and every morning he wakes up and he  _ looks forward to  _ what the day is going to bring.

"Yea?" his younger self says. His voice is doubtful, but in his face there's a glimmer of hope.

"I'm not saying everything in life is easy," Desmond says. "I—there's…" he stumbles a bit, thinking of the animus, the Bleeding effect, his almost death and the loss of his arm. This other Desmond still has to go through all of that, he is going to suffer.

But then things are going to get better.

His younger self is leaning on the bar now, weight on his elbows as he waits for Desmond to finish that sentence. Desmond looks him straight in the eyes. "Life isn't easy," he says. "It never is. But you'll only have to go through it alone for so long, and when you have a family around you, everything is so much better."

His younger self nods, eyes wide, and then—

The visit ends. Desmond is back at home, blinking against the sudden change in lighting. Sage is at his elbow, just as he had been before the unusual visit.

"Yea," Sage says. "Works like that."

"Wow."

"Weird, right?" Sage asks. "I don't think I'd want to talk to myself."

"It wasn't so bad," Desmond says. "Seeing myself when I was that young makes me really grateful for what I have now."

Sage looks at him with a skeptical, you're-really-weird expression that wouldn't have looked too out of place on the face of Desmond's younger self.

Desmond gives a fairly confused Sage a quick hug, and passes over the piece of Eden. "Still," he says. "Probably time to get it out of the house. I like the future better than the past."


	214. Chapter 214

Sage is not entirely surprised when he hears footsteps behind him, and turns around to see Ezio barreling toward him. "Hey," Sage says.

"I heard you telling Desmond what that thing does," Ezio says, without preamble. He's pointing at the piece of Eden in Sage's hand. "Can I use it?"

Sage frowns. "Dad seemed to think that was a bad idea," he says. "Like—you specifically."

"Well, I won't tell him," Ezio says, and Sage sort of narrows his eyes and gives Ezio a suspicious look. There's something almost desperate about the way Ezio is asking, and Sage hadn't expected it. "Come on, Sage—what could it possibly hurt?"

In Sage's experience, questions like  _ what could it possibly hurt  _ or  _ what else could go wrong _ are almost never followed by good things. "I really don't think it's a good idea," he says.

"There's something specific I need to do," Ezio says. "One thing, and that's it, I won't bother you about it again, you can take that thing away and hide it wherever you and Connor usually hide the pieces of Eden. But I need to do one thing first."

"Ezio…"

Somehow, Ezio manages to move forward and bump Sage in a way that makes him lose his grip on the piece, just for a second. By the time he's fumbling to recover, Ezio is already walking away with the piece of Eden clenched tight in one fist. Sage curses himself for forgetting that Ezio is a really good pickpocket, and hurries after him.

-//-

Ezio knows the exact moment he wants to go back to, and as soon as he snatches the piece of Eden out of Sage's hand he shuts his eyes and focuses his entire mind on when and where he wants to be. When he opens them again, he's visiting himself, back in his first life. Ezio feels a bright rush of relief at this sight of his younger (but older looking (but still, obviously, attractive)) self. That other Ezio is fast asleep in bed with Sofia, completely unaware that there's another version of himself in the same room.

It's not the first time Ezio has borrowed the body of someone he's visiting while they're asleep, and he knows this won't wake his other self. He's half out of bed (it's slow going, he's  _ forgotten _ how terrible it is to feel this old and stiff) when Sofia shifts next to him and half wakes.

The movement freezes Ezio in place—he's here for a reason but… Sofia… He pauses, and gives her a brief kiss.

"Where are you going?" she mumbles, only half coherent through a massive yawn.

"Just outside for some fresh air," Ezio says, which isn't true but is at least believable. Sofia nods, and Ezio regretfully slips away. He can't go far, but he doesn't need to. Marcello's room shares a wall with Ezio and Sofia's.

Marcello has a bad habit of sneaking out of bed at the crack of dawn to play, but for once the toddler is asleep when Ezio walks in. Ezio finds a comfortable way to sit on the bed next to his son, and pulls Marcello into his arms, rocking him gently until Marcello starts to stretch and wake up. Then, while Marcello is still only half awake, Ezio starts to tell him everything he should have said already. Everything he's learned about visiting through two long, busy lifetimes. How important visitors are, how they're always there for each other. How Marcello has to be the very best person he can be, always, because his visitors are counting on him.

Every once in a while, Marcello will half mumble something sleepy and silly before lapsing back into a rare quiet. Ezio keeps talking in his gentle, lulling tone, he keeps rocking Marcello. He doesn't stop until he's out of things to say, and Marcello is asleep again in his arms.

There's no way Marcello is awake enough to remember this in the morning.

Ezio could have said all these things to Marcello while he was in the future for a year.

But somehow, it's important to say it  _ now _ . If Ezio had known—if he'd listened when Marcello tried to talk about visitors, if he'd _ believed  _ his son was doing more than just playacting… these were the things he would have made sure Marcello knew right from the beginning. He would have passed all this along to his son before he'd died. As it is, this night is as much as Ezio will ever be able to teach his son of visiting.

He's not surprised when the visit ends, not long after that. Ezio still remembers that night. Remembers waking up with his son in his arms, and not being quite sure how he'd gotten there. Now he knows.

"What did you do?" Sage demands, as soon as Sage is back in the present (and after that last visit, Ezio can't stop wondering when he stopped thinking of it as the future).

"I just had some business to take care of," Ezio says vaguely.

"Well just…" Sage is looking at him anxiously. "Just don't tell my dad, alright? And give me that thing back."

Ezio relinquishes it without complaint, and heads back to his and Edward's room in the safehouse. He can't stop smiling.

"What's wrong?" Edward asks immediately.

"Nothing," Ezio says. "Nothing, I'm fine. Great."

"What happened?" Edward whines.

Ezio hesitates. "Promise you won't tell anyone?"

Edward snorts. "No."

But Ezio tells him anyway, because…. He's a visitor. He has a son who is a visitor. They'd missed their chance to really bond over that before Ezio died, but now… well, it's not much, but he's done something. He's told Marcello all the important things he should have said the first time, and Ezio is content.

"Huh," Edward says, when Ezio has explained the piece of Eden. He grins like a devil, and says, "Do you think I have time to catch up to Sage before he leaves with the piece of Eden? Because that sounds… really, really fun.”


	215. Chapter 215

Ezio makes a halfhearted attempt to convince Edward not to steal the piece of Eden, but since Ezio had stolen it first, Edward feels no guilt whatsoever in ignoring him. Poor Sage is less than happy about it, but he doesn’t get a say, and soon Edward is alone with the piece of Eden, thinking about the one person in the world he wants to see more than anyone. Kidd.

Edward squeezes the piece in his hand and closes his eyes. He misses her.  _ He misses her _ . And it's not fair that he should still be in love with her, even after all these years. If their positions had been reversed, Kidd wouldn't still be missing him. She'd have moved on with her life, and she would have been amazing.

A breeze springs up suddenly, and that's the first warning Edward has that the piece of Eden has done what it's supposed to, and carried him back to his own past. Then someone pokes him, and when Edward opens his eyes, he sees that the poker is the other Edward he's visiting.

Edward pokes him back.

"What's going on?" the other Edward asks. "We can visit ourselves?"

"Once in a while," Edward says, which isn't technically a lie.

"What are you wearing?"

"Uh—" Luckily, he's not wearing the T-shirt with his face on it from Abstergo's video game. Unluckily, they're still pretty clearly from the future. "They're from Desmond. He can leave his stuff behind when he visits."

"Really?"

"Oh yea," Edward says. "Just ask Hay….  _ hat man  _ about the lion Desmond gave him some time."

"You were going to say his name!" his other self says. He sounds mildly outraged. "Where did you learn Hat Man's name?"

"It's a long story," Edward says. And, because he's grown up a bit since he was on the other side of this conversation, he says, "I won't spoil it."

"Talking to one of your invisible friends, Kenway?" Kidd interrupts, and Edward realizes with a jolt that she's been here the whole time.

"Talking to myself, actually," the other Edward grumbles. "But I guess he's visiting, so I'm sort of talking to an invisible—"

Edward interrupts him by stealing his body. Then, ignoring the loud protests of his other self, he kisses Kidd.

"I can't even trust  _ myself  _ to behave around Kidd!" the other Edward shouts. Edward ignores him. He stops kissing Kidd, and leans in close so he can whisper in her ear.

"I love you," he says. "And—don't tell the other me, but I'm never going to stop. I died, and I came back, and I've lived for decades there. But I'm never going to stop loving you."

She laughs, just a little uncomfortably, and shakes her head. "Edward…"

"Sorry," he says. "I'm sorry, I know—"

She kisses him back.

-//-

Later that afternoon, back in that future, Edward goes looking for Arno and dumps the piece of Eden into his hand.

"What are you giving this to  _ me  _ for?" Arno demands. He stares at the thing like it's going to come to life and bite him. "It's freaking everyone out, Sage and Connor were supposed to get rid of it already—"

"It lets you visit yourself," Edward says. "Go see Elise again. You should have some closure."

Arno gives him a confused look, but then he looks thoughtfully down at the piece of Eden. "I never really got to say goodbye, you know," he says quietly. "I'm happy with Jacob, but… she was my best friend when we were growing up. And I miss her."

Edward nods. "Then go see her," he says. "And say your goodbyes."


	216. Chapter 216

Arno takes the piece of Eden outside before using it, because Grace had seen him carrying it around and given him a look of deep betrayal that makes Arno feel guilty for taking the damn thing from Edward in the first place. He shouldn't be using it. He  _ should  _ be hiding it somewhere until Sage and Connor can take it away.

But Edward's right. He wants to see Elise.

It's odd to think that he might get to see her again. Loving her had shaped him as a young man—losing her had almost killed him. Strange.  _ Strange _ . Arno has not had to think about his feelings for her in a long time. He…tries not to, because Elise isn't Jacob, and it's impossible to compare the two.

What if he sees her again? What would he  _ say _ ? No—he wouldn't say anything, because she won't be able to see him, he'll only be visiting himself. The only way he'd be able to speak with Elise is if he took his younger self's body, and he's not going to take her away from him for so much as a second. She's too important to him. She—

Crap. Arno had just been standing there, considering what to do and whether to speak to Elise, and the piece of Eden has apparently made the decision for him. Suddenly he's in Paris, surrounded by the sounds and the  _ smell  _ of it, and Arno is struck by a sudden pang of nostalgia. He hasn't even been to France in this lifetime, and suddenly that seems like an unforgivable oversight. He'll have to start working on Jacob when he gets home—maybe they can go for a couple weeks. Just to see.

Arno is at the top of a rundown building, and when he looks down to street level he can see himself. He's with Jacob, and they sound like they're squabbling over something (probably another stupid idea of Jacob's). Even from two stories up, Arno can hear them laughing.

And then he realizes he's not alone. There's someone standing on a balcony a few feet below where he's crouched—she's sort of leaning on the railing, smiling down at where Arno and the invisible-to-everyone-else Jacob are still bickering. Well, Arno is shouting pointlessly at Jacob, almost doubled over with laughter, as the other man kicks puddle water at him.

"Stay safe, Arno," she says. "Stay  _ happy _ ."

"Are you spying on me?" Arno asks her. He knows she can't hear him, but this is the closest he'll ever get to a conversation with Elise.

She doesn't answer, of course. After pausing a moment to assure himself that he won't be wandering out of visiting range, Arno clambers over to Elise's balcony, and leans on the railing next to her. She's half smiling down at the other him.

"Did you do this a lot?" he asks. "You could have come down and said something. You didn't have to stay so far away. I would have loved having you around."

She looks sad and lonely—Arno doesn't know what to do, or what to say, because nothing will matter but he has to try  _ something _ . In the end, Arno settles next to her in silence. It's not much, but it's something. Just standing side by side on the balcony, sharing the space, even if Elise has no idea Arno is there.

Eventually, Arno works up the courage to say  _ "Goodbye _ ."

-//-

Back at home, Arno leaves the piece of Eden in the backyard and goes running into the safehouse. As soon as he sees Jacob, he hugs him tight and tells him everything.

Jacob kisses him, because Jacob will use basically any excuse to kiss him, and listens to everything he has to say. At the end, he says, "I'll go take care of the piece of Eden if you want. Did you leave it out back?"

"Yea," Arno says. He is absolutely sure that Jacob is going to give the piece of Eden a try, but there's nothing he can do about that.

"Ok," Jacob says. Then, after a bit of hesitation, he turns the conversation back to Arno's story about visiting himself. "Do you think Elise would have liked me?"

"I don't know," Arno says. "Maybe. You're pretty different."

"But we have one really important thing in common," Jacob says. "We both care about you a  _ lot _ ."

"You're a walking, talking, terrible cliché," Arno grumbles. But it makes him feel better to hear that anyway


	217. Chapter 217

Jacob doesn't have a lot of regrets in his life. He's made mistakes of course, and some of them have been pretty massive. But he's lucky enough to have a sister and visitors that help him to make up for all those missteps. That means that when he gets his hands on the 'visit yourself' piece of Eden, he doesn't want to go back and fix things, or offer anyone an apology. He's just looking forward to hanging out with his past self, because how many people get to do  _ that _ , honestly?

He squeezes the piece of Eden in his hand, and vanishes. There's a huge grin on his face when he rematerializes on the train hideout, staring his younger self right in the face.

"Hey," the other Jacob says, taking a startled step backward. "Are you—you're not here visiting me, are you?"

"Yep," Jacob says, still perfectly cheerful. He hasn't visited at all since he died, and it's not until this moment that he realizes how much he's missed it. Not just the people (he gets to see them all the time, after all, he lives with them), but the actual experience of visiting.

"But Evie says I can't visit myself," Jacob says doubtfully. "She said she's talked to most of the other visitors, and all of them say it's impossible to visit yourself!"

"Evie's not always right, you know," Jacob says.

"Yes she is," his younger self says.

"Well—alright, yea. But this is a special circumstance," Jacob says.

"Obviously," the other Jacob says. He bounces a little. "Two of us has to be at least twice as amazing as one of us, right?"

"Oh, at least."

"What are you wearing, though?" the younger Jacob asks.

"What? Oh, shit." He's still wearing his normal clothes. "Um…" Luckily, Evie's not around to demand a good explanation, so Jacob just shakes his head like there's some horrible story behind it and says, "You don't want to know."

"Well, I guess I'll get there eventually," the other Jacob says. He grins hugely and adds, "Looks stupid, though."

By this point, Jacob's so used to wearing clothes from the twenty first century that he doesn't even notice the strangeness. But it's definitely better than his other self continuing to ask questions, so Jacob just grins too and waves a hand vaguely. "Well, then I guess you get to look forward to looking stupid, don't yo—"

But suddenly the other Jacob has his arm in a vicelike grip, and he's frowning at his older self's hand like there's something about it that just makes absolutely no sense. He pokes at the ring on Jacob's finger. "What's  _ that  _ for?" he demands. "What are you—you didn't—I mean, I'm not going to…"

Gently (but also quickly, because he's starting to lose some of the feeling in his fingers), Jacob pulls his arm away. He looks down at the ring, and suddenly a pang of loneliness spikes through him. It's been all of… what, ten minutes? And he already misses Arno. Maybe it's a good thing he's not really visiting anymore.

"What  _ is _ it?" the other Jacob prods again.

"It's a sort of promise, I guess," Jacob says after thinking for about ten seconds. "From someone very important. That things are going to get better. And I don't have to be alone."

"But who is it from?"

Jacob isn't entirely sure when this is, during his first life. It seems early, but Jacob can't really narrow it down more than that. What if this is before he falls in love with Arno, how awkward would  _ that  _ be? Or what if it's after? Probably the best moment in either of Jacob's lives had been when Arno finally loved him. He's not going to take that away from his younger self by telling him about it ahead of time.

"Someone that is way,  _ way  _ too good for us," Jacob says.

-//-

When he's gone back home, and tossed the piece of Eden to Evie (under the vague idea that she's always the one that cleans up his messes anyway), Jacob makes a beeline for Arno and just hugs him. "I missed you," he announces.

"It's been like two minutes," Arno says.

"I visited," Jacob says. "It was like… ten minutes. At least."

"Oh, right," Arno says. "Sure. That's much more reasonable."

"I know you're being sarcastic," Jacob says. "But I am choosing to ignore that."

"Dork," Arno says, affectionately.


	218. Chapter 218

"I'm not going to use it," Evie says. "I'm  _ not _ ."

"That's okay," Desmond says. "We should probably have gotten it out of the house already anyway."

They both look down at the piece of Eden Evie is turning over and over in her hand.

"You used it first," Evie says. "You started this whole thing."

A pause. "I know," Desmond says. "I shouldn't have. But to be fair, I didn't think everyone else would start using it after me."

"Well I won't," Evie says. "There's no reason to go back and visit myself."

Desmond gives her a sad look. "Are you sure?" he asks. "There's nothing you'd tell yourself if you could? No one you'd go back and talk to?"

"I know what you're getting at," Evie says. "And yes, if I could go back and make things right… but it's too late."

"No it's not," Desmond says.

"I let Henry die without ever telling him about visitors," Evie says. "And then I made the same mistake with my daughters. I can't go back and change that. It's done. It's too late to go back and tell them all the things I want them to know."

Both of them are quiet.

"I won't do it," Evie says again, and she passes the piece of Eden back to him. When it leaves her hand, Evie feels like a huge weight has gone off her shoulders.

"Are you sure?" Desmond asks.

"Positive," Evie says. "It's too late…" She heaves a sigh.

Desmond doesn't argue with her. He just looks down at the piece of Eden. “Dad was asking me about this the other day,” he says. “I think he wants to do something with it.”

“Are you going to give it to him?” Evie’s relieved not to be talking about her using the piece any longer.

Desmond shrugs. “Probably,” he says. “Sage and Connor have pretty much given up on being able to get rid of this thing anytime soon, and I mean.... No offense to your brother, but if Jacob could use this thing without destroying the timeline, I think Dad should be able to use it without too much trouble.”


	219. Chapter 219

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry guys, I have no idea where the Haytham meets himself chapter is. I thought it had been posted at one point, but apparently it hasn't, and I have no idea what happened to it. :( Just assume that nothing of vital importance happened, the piece of Eden was passed on, etc. Sorry again.

Aveline has no great regrets in her life. There are things that she would, perhaps, do differently if the chance came to go through it all over again. But what's done is done, and there's no point dwelling on the past.

Which doesn't mean that Aveline is going to pass up the chance to visit herself in the past, now that it's come up. But it's curiosity that prompts her to use it after Haytham hands it to her, not regret. She's seen herself on visits before, plenty of times. It's a natural side effect of marrying a visitor. But Aveline has never visited herself, and she wants to know what it's like.

So she just holds the piece of Eden in her hand, and smiles at it a little, and waits for it to take her to somewhere—somewhen—in her past.

And it does, but it takes her to the last point in her life that she would have expected to go. It's her home in New Orleans, the house she had grown up in. Aveline feels a brief pang of homesickness, but it fades quickly. She has her family around her in the future, and what else could she need?

Then she sees when she is, and for a moment she's just… shocked.

This is a scene that Aveline does not remember living through, although it's had an incalculable influence on everything that happened in her life after. Because this is the day she was born. It's the day that her father freed her mother. And her.

Her mother—who looks exhausted, her hair plastered to her head with sweat, slumped against a pile of pillows on the bed where she's lying—is cradling the newborn Aveline close to her chest, so securely wrapped in blankets that only her face visibly peeks out.

Aveline's father kneels next to the bed, head bowed. Aveline is on the other side of the room, and he's speaking softly—she can't quite hear what he's saying. She focuses instead on her mother's face, and the wild range of emotions passing over it. Confusion, disbelief, hope, and something Aveline only recognizes because she's felt it on her own face when she's with Shay or Haytham.

After a few minutes, Aveline's father stands up (and he half turns while he does so, giving Aveline a better look at his face. He's been crying). He perches nervously on the side of the bed next to her mother, and she shifts closer so that they can lean close together, around the newborn Aveline…

The older Aveline feels oddly choked up at the sight. It's been… far too long since she was able to see her parents like this. Together, happy. A selfish part of Aveline wants to borrow the body of her newborn self, just to feel their arms around her one more time. But she can't bring herself to take them away from the child. She's just been born, and she knows nothing at all, apart from the two people around them. Aveline isn't going to take her whole world away.

So she just stands there, and watches. Her mother, her father, and her. When the piece of Eden tugs at her consciousness and drags her away before she is fully ready. Maybe she'll never be ready. She misses her family.

When the piece of Eden takes her home, Aveline insists that Shay and Haytham spend the rest of the day with her, hidden away in their room. Later, when they are tangled together in bed, Aveline gives the piece of Eden to Shay.

"Haytham's used it already," she explains. "I think it's probably your turn."


	220. Chapter 220

Shay is not particularly interested in the piece of Eden everyone else is using to visit themselves in the past. He's never really trusted any of the pieces of Eden. Lisbon took care of that.

But he can read the way the winds are blowing, and he decides it's best to just get it over with. So he takes the piece when it's offered, and marches off to a quiet place to use it. Well away from the safe house, where the non-visitors are still complaining how bad it feels to have the thing around.

So he takes the piece of Eden, and holds it tight…

And… finds himself in the safe house.

Only it's not the one they're living in now, it's one that Shay vaguely remembers from… maybe fifteen, twenty years ago? Maybe? Shay looks around, and sees his younger self giving him an odd look.

"Can we visit ourselves now?" the younger Shay asks. "We get new visitors now that we're in the future,  _ and  _ we visit ourselves?"

"Not really," Shay says. "It's just… never mind, it's a long story."

The other Shay shrugs. "So what happens now?" he asks.

"I don't know," Shay says.

"Don't you remember this happening?"

That makes Shay pause. He doesn't particularly remember this, actually. And he doesn't remember anyone else ever talking about meeting themselves, either. Are these visits changing the past, or are their lives just so strange that meeting themselves isn't even memorable?

He shrugs.

"I…" the younger Shay hesitates. "We've met ourselves before."

"Yes," Shay agrees.

"This isn't particularly…" the younger Shay seems to be grasping for something polite to say. Shay recognizes his expression. "How long are you going to be here?"

"I don't know," Shay says. "Not much longer, I hope." He's no more impressed by this visit than his younger self is.

They spend half an hour making awkward small talk, and then Shay's visit comes to an end. He breathes out a little sigh, and his shoulders slump in relief. It's over, at least.

He gives the piece of Eden to Connor, who seems no happier to receive the thing than Shay had been to use it. "Your turn," Shay says, already walking away. "Enjoy."


	221. Chapter 221

Connor has an explanation ready when he uses the Piece of Eden to go back in time and visit himself. As soon as his younger self (although that doesn't seem like quite the right word to use on a man that must be at least sixty years old) opens his mouth to ask how he can be visiting himself, Connor says, "I'm from an alternate timeline."

And, because he's actually been to another universe and therefore knows they're real, the other Connor only nods as if to say that no more explanation is necessary. And it does at least prevent questions about how Connor can be visiting himself, or why he is dressed in twenty first century clothes. "Did you use a Piece of Eden to get here?" he asks, gesturing to the thing Connor is still holding tightly in one hand.

"Yes," Connor says, honestly.

"Any particular reason?"

Connor tries to hide what he's feeling behind an indifferent mask, but he doesn't think it could possibly be all that effective against himself. The truth is, Connor doesn't know exactly why he's here. Everyone else is doing it, but that means nothing to him. It hadn't factored into his decision at all. Perhaps he's just feeling nostalgic for home.

"Hmm," the other Connor says. "Sit?"

Connor sits. They're in the homestead's kitchen, and for a while they simply sit in silence on opposite sides of the rough wooden table. Connor rubs the wood absentmindedly—odd, to feel such a pang of homesick longing over a simple object. But this table had been here the entire time Connor was living at the Homestead. Longer. He's pretty sure he remembers seeing it once on a visit to a much younger Shay.

"Did you live here?" the other Connor asks. "In your… timeline?"

"For a while," Connor says. "But the house isn't here anymore."

"So where do you live now?"

"With—family."

He's entirely ready for the way the other Connor flinches. "I don't have much family left, in this world," he says.

 

Connor knows that his younger self has more family than he thinks. But he doesn't say that aloud.

The atmosphere in the room starts to grow gloomy, but luckily before it can get too dark, Connor hears footsteps creaking down the stairs. Then Matthew comes into the room, holding a fussy Joy against his chest. She looks maybe six months old, and Connor smiles a little, despite the pang of guilt in his chest. How much time had he spent in his first life trying to convince Matthew to search for Joy's 'real' parents?

" _ Somebody  _ doesn't want her nap today," Matthew says fondly, as Joy sniffles into his shoulder. "So I thought we'd go for a little walk to see if that tires her out."

Connor opens his mouth—he's thinking about Leo, who sometimes  _ refuses  _ to fall asleep unless someone straps him into his car seat and starts driving around with him—and remembers at the last second to clamp down on his enthusiasm. But he smiles at Matthew, and Joy, and the other Connor.

"I thought you said you didn't have much family left in this world," he says, feigning confusion as Matthew carries Joy out again.

The other Connor looks at him for a long time. Then he nods. "I have enough," he allows.

-//-

Nearly everyone has used the Piece of Eden by this point. Connor isn't entirely sure who to pass it off to when he gets back to the twenty first century. In fact, he's seriously considering calling Sage up and making a second attempt at taking it off somewhere to hide it, when Altair approaches.

"It's my turn," he says.

"Do you want to use it?" Connor asks, surprised.

"I—yes."

Connor studies Altair as he hands the Piece of Eden over. He wants to ask Altair what it is he wants to go back and revisit. But he doesn't, because he has an idea that Altair won't want to share. Instead, he simply nods, hands the Piece of Eden over, and leaves Altair to his plans.


	222. Chapter 222

Altair has honestly never wondered before whether he'd had visitors as a child. He knows he'd  _ visited,  _ not because he remembers it himself, but because he's heard about it from some of the others. Edward in particular has a wealth of embarrassing stories about nearly all the visitors as children. But Altair has never paused to wonder if his visitors had come to see him in Masyaf when he was young.

Well, now he knows the answer. Because here he is, thanks to a piece of Eden, visiting himself. As a child. His younger self is crouched on a tall lip of one of Masyaf's towers, swaying slightly, hands pressed to the ground to steady himself.

Altair has appeared a little closer to the edge than his younger self, and he crouches as well so that their faces are less than six inches away.

"Are you real?" the younger Altair whispers.

"Yes."

"But you weren't there," the younger Altair says. "And then you were." He reaches forward with one arm (and wobbles a little), and pokes his older self. "But you feel real."

Despite himself, Altair smiles. "It's strange, isn't it?" he says.

His younger self stares at him like he's some sort of unsolvable puzzle.

"Listen," Altair says. And some people might find it odd to be giving their younger selves life advice while crouched on a narrow perch dozens of feet above the ground. But this is where Altair feels most comfortable. "You're going to see a lot of strange things in your life. Keep an open mind, because some of it's real, and some of it's incredible, and it's all worth paying attention to." He hesitates. "When you're older, you're going to meet people that seem far less real than me. Or at least…far more confusing. Try to listen to them."

The other Altair gives him a look of extreme confusion.

"Trust me," Altair says. "They're strange, but the sooner you accept them as friends, the better your life will be. The stronger you will be."

"I want to be strong," his younger self says.

"Nothing will make you stronger than your friends," Altair says. "I promise."

-//-

When he gets back home, he's momentarily unsure what to do with the Piece of Eden. Part of him knows he should let Connor and Sage have it so they can take it to wherever they hide the other Pieces of Eden. But it seems unfair to hand it over without letting every visitor meet themselves. And if he's counting right, the only one left is Adewale.

"I don't want that," Adewale tries to protest, when Altair hands over the Piece of Eden.

"Just use it once," Altair says. "Just once."


	223. Chapter 223

Adewale isn't quite sure that using the Piece of Eden to visit himself is a good idea.

"I didn't believe in visiting for most of my first life," he tells Edward. "Seeing myself isn't going to make anything better."

"But aren't you curious?" Edward asks.

"Not really," Adewale says. "I've lived my own life already. I know everything that happens."

"But  _ meeting  _ yourself—"

"I'm not Ezio," Adewale says.

Edward rolls his eyes. "There are other things to do besides kissing yourself, you know."

"I would certainly hope so."

"You can fuck yourself too!" Edward says, and when Adewale looks over he sees that Edward's just barely keeping a straight face. Adewale wonders why he's having this conversation with Edward, rather than with someone sensible. Then again, two lifetimes worth of friendship is nothing to be sneezed at.

"And what did you do," Adewale says, "when  _ you  _ went back and met yourself?"

Edward's eyes flick away from him, all his previous bravado vanishing all at once. "I…talked to Mary," he says.

Because of course he had.

"There's no one I miss like that," Adewale says. "There's no one I want to see, or speak to—"

"Just go already!" Edward says, and he pushes at Adewale's hand where it's holding the Piece of Eden, and they scuffle over it for a second before the world flashes and they're  _ both  _ back in the past, visiting themselves.

They're on the  _ Jackdaw _ , and from the look of it, this must have been only days after they first met—the two of them still look like strangers.

The Edward next to Adewale laughs, and swings his arm around his friend's shoulder. "See?" he says. "It's fun to visit yourself."

"How is this fun?" Adewale asks. "Now I have to spend the rest of this visit trying to stop you from doing something stupid and ruining the timeline."

Which is, in fact, exactly how he spends the next hour and a half until their visit (mercifully) ends. And although he'll never admit it to Edward, it's probably more fun together than it would have been alone. Most things are.

But when they get back to the twenty first century, he makes sure to pass the Piece of Eden off as quickly as possible before it occurs to Edward that they can do that again. There's still one visitor in the house that hasn't had the dubious honor of meeting themselves.

"You know I don't want this," Elena says. "Don't you?"

"Neither do I," says Adewale. "But it's your turn."

She's looking down at it thoughtfully as Adewale walks away.


	224. Chapter 224

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe I forgot to post Arno and Jacob actually stealing the baby. xD Here we go.

Arno does not get along with most of the assassins in his own time. After Bellec's massive betrayal, Arno really hasn't been able to  _ trust  _ any of them. In the decades since then, he's watched the assassins of Paris fall in on themselves, watched them turn vicious and bitter—they'll fight Templars, but Arno has an idea they do it because they like the violence, not because they care for the assassin cause.

It's not something Arno is all that comfortable with. So these days he does what he can to keep away from both assassins and Templars. Which would be great, except that for some  _ inexplicable  _ reason, they won't leave him alone. Sometimes it's a novice hoping for some kind of training from someone that actually knows how to use a hidden blade. Sometimes a little group of them will show up on his doorstep after a mission, hoping for somewhere to hide out.

Today, a pair of particularly arrogant young assassins climb through his window with a baby.

Arno's just come from visiting Jacob and Edgar—he very nearly has a heart attack when he sees them come climbing in, the infant precariously balanced in the arm of the first assassin.

"No," Arno says, and immediately snatches the baby away. "Absolutely not, that is  _ not  _ how you hold a baby."

"But—"

"No."

Not even Jacob is stupid enough to go climbing through windows while holding Edgar. Anymore.

Arno looks down at the baby, a wrinkled up little thing, probably still a newborn, literally shaking in the early fall chill. This is absolutely not going to work.

"We stole him," one of the assassins boasts, as Arno starts searching his room for something to wrap the baby in.

"Most people wouldn't say that like it's a good thing," Arno points out. He finds a relatively clean blanket, and starts swaddling the baby. He watches the child—definitely a boy, Arno can see now—with concern until he finally stops shivering.

"But he's a  _ Templar's  _ baby," the other assassin says, as if this is supposed to explain everything. Or anything. "We're saving him."

"From his parents?" Arno asks, sharply.

One of the assassins—apparently the smarter of the two—starts shifting uncomfortably. The other one doesn't seem to have noticed yet that Arno disapproves of his kidnapping.

"Look at it this way," he says. "If he grew up with Templar parents, he'd just be a Templar someday himself. And then we'd have to kill him."

"So you just looked at this  _ infant _ , and your first thought was 'oh hey we're going to have to kill him some day'? What kind of monsters are you?"

It's more or less exactly what Arno's thinking, but he's startled when someone else actually gets the words out first. He jumps a bit and turns around, and there's Jacob standing at his shoulder. Arno smiles, just a fraction.

Jacob looks over at him. "Arno!" he says. "They're kidnapping kids!"

Arno nods.

"Not okay," Jacob says. He glares (invisibly) at the two young assassins. "Definitely not okay."

"What are you going to do with him?" Arno asks.

"Well—" the marginally-less-intelligent assassin frowns. "We snatched the baby and ran off, we didn't have time to kill the mother too."

Jacob takes advantage of his invisibility to gesture rudely at the kidnapper, and then adds several creative epithets for good measure.

"So we thought we'd come here and hide out," the assassin continues. "You're still on our side, right? I know you're too old to fight, but you'll let us hide here until it's safe again."

Arno is  _ not  _ too old to fight, he's just  _ tired _ of fighting. Somehow, he doesn't think either of the kidnappers are going to understand the difference.

"And then?" he prods.

"Dunno," says one of the assassins. "We'll figure something out."

"You definitely have to steal this baby," Jacob informs Arno.

Arno gives him a look. This baby's already been stolen, and the poor thing doesn't need a second kidnapping.

"Come on!" Jacob prods. "You'll take better care of him than these idiots will."

The boys are starting to lose interest in him—they're migrating toward Arno's kitchen, talking loudly about other Templars in the city, and various plans for killing them. Arno looks at them, then back at Jacob, then down at the newborn. Maybe it's Arno's imagination, but he thinks the baby looks confused.

"I can't keep him," Arno tells Jacob softly. "I'm not a parent."

"Of course you are," Jacob says dismissively. "Edgar—"

"Is special," Arno says, firmly, because it's true. "I… wouldn't know where to start with a kid like this. I can't do this, and I  _ shouldn't  _ do this. If this kid is going to be safe, he needs to be sent as far away from here as possible."

"Fine," Jacob says. "But you'll still steal him, right? Just to get him away from these two morons?"

They look over at the two assassins, who are completely ignoring Arno. Then they look back at each other. Arno keeps thinking how stealing an already stolen baby would probably be the dumbest thing that Jacob has ever convinced him to do. It's not a good idea. It just really, really isn't a good idea.

-//-

They end up hiding in a sewer for a solid two hours, but it works. The two young assassins don't find them (for all Arno knows, they aren't even trying-he's not entirely convinced that they've noticed the baby is missing). After, Arno and Jacob take the baby to a tiny apartment Arno keeps around for emergencies. He's pretty sure nobody but Jacob even knows about it, and so he feels safe there.

"So you're not keeping the baby?" Jacob asks. "Are you sure?"

"I'm not a parent," Arno says again.

Jacob rolls his eyes again.

"I have a few ideas," Arno says. "I think… Yes. There might be one or two people I'd trust with him."


	225. Chapter 225

Elena decides to use the Piece of Eden more or less on accident. Or maybe  _ decides _ is the wrong word—she's still considering whether or not it would be a good idea when suddenly she's somewhere else. And… it's been decades since she was last here but something about it hits her hard. Elena is still looking around, trying to get her bearings, when her heart starts racing and her muscles tense up—she's nervous and afraid, all at once, and it's not until she sees the tiny shape curled up on a mat on the floor that Elena realizes exactly where she is.

She doesn't have very clear memories of being Abstergo's prisoner. And her visitors, who still occasionally visit her at that age, won't talk to her about it. And Elena has asked. She can vaguely remember the last days of her imprisonment. Meeting her dad for the first time still sticks in her mind, clear as anything. She remembers waking up in the days after that and poking Clay’s little robot body until he started flying around, just to reassure herself that she wasn't alone. But before that—nothing but an unhappy blur of half formed memory.

Once, when she was about fifteen, Elena had badgered Marcello with questions about what her life had been like when she was very, very young. He'd seemed like the best choice because normally it was impossible to get him to  _ stop  _ talking, but in this case he'd only gotten very uncomfortable and asked her to change the subject. So Elena had done exactly that, and in all the years since, she hasn't brought it up again.

But it seems like this is her chance to get some answers, because as she moves hesitantly closer to her younger self, she sees that this version of herself is very small indeed—she looks about a year old, give or take about a month. Almost the same age as Leo is, back in the future Elena has just left. But where Leo is constantly on the move, testing his shaky legs and trying his best to literally run before he learns to walk, this younger Elena is still as a statue. She watches her older self through eyes that are only half open, dim and flat. When Elena sits, cross legged, a few inches away from the younger Elena, the child responds with a mewling noise like a sad kitten, and wriggles pathetically backward.

She's nearly naked, apart from a diaper that's overdue for a change, and a blanket that's been mostly kicked away. And she's pale, too, which really isn't surprising for someone that has never been outside. Elena can see rashes on the baby's side, little angry red bedsores that make her rub self consciously at her own side.

Her younger self watches her through eyes that are far too old for her face, and Elena reaches forward to pick her up—after a year with Leo, it's almost instinctual to offer comfort.

It doesn't work out exactly the way Elena wants it to—her younger self doesn't exactly start crying, but she squeezes her eyes shut and makes a horrible, wet, choking noise like she's holding tears inside. Her shoulders shake from the effort of not breaking into sobs.

Elena—the older Elena—pauses, one hand still outstretched. Her cheeks are wet.  _ She's  _ crying. Then, after a long, painful moment of consideration, she moves forward again. As gently as she can, she readjusts her younger self on the mat, trying to take the pressure off some of the worst of the rashes. There's a cabinet nearby, half full of supplies. Elena finds a wet cloth and a clean diaper, and cleans her younger self as best she can. When she's done (and the little Elena is gasping and red in the face from the effort of not crying—what had Abstergo  _ done  _ to teach her not to cry? If motherhood has taught Elena anything, it is that children cry a lot), she settles herself against the wall. Very gently, she runs one hand through her younger self's hair, soothing and calming.

After a while, the baby starts to sniffle, and then shake—it breaks Elena's heart when she finally starts to cry in earnest, screwing up her face and sobbing in absolute fear and misery. She's not sure whether to stop or keep going, whether the tears are a sign that her younger self feels safe enough to cry around her, or that she's just too scared to keep the tears at bay.

And then all of a sudden, the tears stop. Little Elena squirms away from her older self, reaching her skinny arms skyward. Elena looks around and— _ oh, thank God _ —sees Matthew. He's maybe ten or fifteen years younger than Elena, and normally that would be awkward. But not right now. Elena is too relieved just to see a visitor's face.

Matthew doesn't say anything until he's gathered the younger Elena into his arms, rocking gently as the baby babbles a stream of words that mean nothing in a miserable, exhausted tone that means  _ everything _ . She wraps her arms around his neck and buries her face in his shoulder and hides from the world.

"Are you visiting yourself?" Matthew asks Elena, when the baby drifts off.

"Yes," Elena says.

"How?" Matthew asks. " _ Why _ ? Why now?"

"It's a long story."

"But—"

"I'll tell you when you're older," Elena says, and is rewarded with a textbook teenage pout from Matthew. She changes the subject before he can argue. "Were things always this bad for me when I was a baby?" she asks.

Matthew doesn't quite meet her eyes. "Pretty much," he says. "Every time I visit. And I mean… the others have pretty much said the same thing, when I talked to them."

" _ Geeze _ ," Elena whispers. "That's not fair."

Matthew shakes his head.

"Thank you," Elena says. "You… didn't have to be here for me. None of you did."

"Course we did," Matthew says at one. "We're your  _ visitors _ , 'Lena. And she—you needed us when you were little." He hugs the little Elena tighter. "You didn't have anyone to teach you things—walking, or talking, or toilet training—" He flushes slightly, and so does Elena. "You didn't have anyone to love you, 'Lena. What else were we supposed to do?"

-//-

The first thing Elena does, when her visit is over and she's home again, is give the Piece of Eden back to Connor. They're done with the damn thing—he and Sage can go bury it in a desert, or whatever they do with Pieces of Eden. It's over, they're done. The second thing she does is find Leo—she hugs him as tight as she can and promises to be there for him forever. And the third thing she does—when Matthew shows up on a fantastically timed visit—is thank him from the bottom of her heart, because she honestly doesn't know where she'd be without him and the rest of their visitors


	226. Chapter 226

"I'm  _ mad  _ at you, Papa," Patrick announces when Rory walks into his room. He turns around with a  _ hmph! _ so his back is to Rory, and crosses his little arms over his chest.

Rory had not been expecting this, and he stops in the doorway as suddenly as if he'd walked into a wall. "Patrick," he says, when he's regained the ability to form words. "What's the matter?"

"You and Maman were shouting," Patrick says. "I don't  _ like  _ it."

As always, Rory has to suppress just a tiny wince when Patrick calls Jeanne his mother. It's not that he's jealous, and he doesn't resent her for her claim on Patrick (especially not while he's still Patrick's favorite—most of the time). But it will never not be weird that she's his sister and also his son's mother.

"We weren't shouting," Rory says. "We were just talking."

"Loud," Patrick accuses.

"Yes," Rory says. "Sometimes that's how brothers and sisters are loud when they talk to each other." He moves into the room and sits down on the chair next to the window. Only a couple of years ago, he'd spent night after night in this chair with Patrick fussing against his chest until he fell asleep.

Patrick considers this. He doesn't look convinced, but he turns around to look at Rory. "Me and Joy are loud when we play together," he says. "But we don't shout like you and Maman do."

Rory and Jeanne have spent their whole lives butting heads, more or less. They'd argued their way through childhood, and fought as adults. There was a time when Rory swore he'd never stop trying to rescue his little sister from the Templars until he succeeded. Then there was a time when he thought he could never forgive her for picking the Templars.

He doesn't care as much anymore. Rory knows he'll never like or trust the Templars as much as he does the assassins. But he'd leave his brotherhood behind in a heartbeat if it was a choice between them and Patrick.

"I'm sorry," he says now. "I will try not to shout at your mother any more."

"Promise?"

Rory nods, and Patrick relaxes. He lets his crossed arms fall to his sides, and he gives Rory a little smile. Rory smiles back, relieved that his son's brief spurt of anger had passed so quickly. What would he have done if Patrick stayed angry for longer?

It's impossible not to think of his own father at this moment, at least a little. Rory had nursed a special loathing for his father until the day he died, and it's only now that he has a son of his own that Rory understands how wrong that was. But it's too late to go back and undo that mistake. Rory will just have to carry it with him for the rest of his life.

"Patrick," he says, opening his arms to let Patrick crawl obligingly into his lap. "Did I ever tell you where your name came from?"

"Grandpa," Patrick says at once. "You told me, and Maman told me, and Grandma told me too."

"Good," Rory says.

"I like him," Patrick announces, even though Shay had died years before Patrick was born.

"He would have loved you," Rory says.

"But not as much as  _ you  _ love me," Patrick says. "Right, Papa?"

Rory hugs him a little tighter.

"Papa?" Patrick says. "What about my other name? Why  _ James _ ?"

"I think that's a story for another day," Rory says gently. When Patrick is old enough to start asking questions about assassins and Templars, that's when Rory will tell him about the first Templar to start chipping away at the walls Rory had so stubbornly put up. Instead, he kisses the top of Patrick's head, and listens fondly as Patrick prattles on about the neighbor's cat, and a pretty leaf he'd seen, and his favorite foods, and on and on and on.

Rory nods in all the right places, and thanks whatever odd bit of luck had brought Patrick to him. And for a painful, drawn out moment, he wishes his father was there with him.


	227. Chapter 227

Elena is still getting used to Joy. It shouldn't be that much of a jump to get used to her children switching places, after spending a lifetime as a visitor herself. But it _is_ strange, and there's an element of guilt to it as well. Leo and Joy have been switching back and forth for… presumably since they were infants, and Elena hadn't even noticed. A good mother would have noticed—she can't imagine Aveline not noticing Rory and Jeanne switching places, for example.

She and Matthew are trying to convince the twins to tell one of them when they switch, but it's hard going. Toddlers aren't particularly good at following directions even in the best of circumstances. They're getting better though, and one evening while Elena is fighting with the never ending pile of laundry generated by the almost two dozen people in the safe house, she hears little feet on the floor behind her.

"Leo," she calls, without looking up from the pile of clothes she's sorting into piles (one for warm water, one for cold water, and one for blood stains). "What's wrong?"

"I'm Joy," Leo—Joy—announces.

"Oh," Elena says. She turns around, and sees…Joy standing against the wall, looking distinctly uncomfortable and unhappy. Elena makes an effort to smile at her, and a part of her heart breaks. This isn't how it was supposed to be. "Hi, sweetie."

"Hi," Joy says. They both look at each other, and Elena can't think of anything to say. She's seen Joy a few times before this, but _every_ time, it's awkward. Elena keeps hoping that it will get better eventually, but right now it's almost painful how far away Joy is from her.

Then Joy yawns, so widely it almost tears her face in two, and rubs at her eyes. Elena leaps at the chance to do something. "Are you tired?"

"No…" Joy yawns again, but this time behind her hand. Elena smiles, and leans down to take Joy's hand.

"Let's just go upstairs," she says, and helps Joy climb up the stairs that are almost as tall as her tiny legs. At the end, she has to carry Joy part of the way, and when she puts Joy down in Leo's usual place, Joy doesn't kick up a fuss.

All she says is, "Will you read me a story?"

"Do you want me to?" Elena asks.

"I like it when you read me stories," Joy says, and Elena has a moment of confusion--she’s never read to Joy. Not that she knows, anyway. Because Joy and Leo had been changing places, and Elena hadn’t _noticed_.

Well, she's noticed now. "I would love to read you a story," she says. And Joy smiles, and Elena thinks that maybe it's not too late for Joy to like her.

Elena's done this so many times with Leo, and it's easy to fall into the same familiar routine with Joy. They make it through a whole picture book before Joy is definitely too tired to keep her eyes open. Elena lingers a minute or two, watching Joy shifting and trying to find a more comfortable position. Then, as she turns to go, Joy's eyes slide open again.

"You're Leo's mommy," she says.

Elena smiles at her, but it's a sad smile. "Yes I am," she agrees.

Joy looks at her for a second. Then she says, "I always call you Mommy when me and Leo switch."

"Yes," Elena says.

Joy kind of huddles under the blankets. "Can I still call you Mommy?" she says. "I don't have one."

"Of c—" This really isn't how this was supposed to go. Elena has to fight to get the words out. "Of course."


	228. Chapter 228

"I'm… uncomfortable with Joy and Leo switching places with each other," Connor admits to Desmond.

"I guess it's a little weird," Desmond says. "But not that much weirder than visiting."

"It's not that," Connor says. "I don't have a problem with the general idea of people switching places. But it's just… Joy."

"What about her?"

Connor hesitates, and Desmond gives him a considering look. Sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference between Connor being worried and Connor being his normal, slightly reserved self. Desmond is starting to think this is probably worried Connor.

"I knew her in my first life," Connor says. "But I'm not sure I made a very good impression on her."

"Why not?" Desmond asks. He's honestly surprised that Connor would be concerned about that. Yes, he can be almost cold at times, but Desmond doesn't know many people he'd rather have by his side. Why wouldn't Joy like him?

"I never knew she was Matthew's daughter," Connor says.

"And?"

"And…" Connor sighs. "Matthew told me she was a foundling. I spent a lot of time and energy trying to find her parents, because…" He looks very unhappy. "I knew what it was like to lose a child. I didn't want Joy's parents to lose her like that, and I never thought I was taking her away from her father. I think… I think she might resent me for that, and…" he trails off.

"I'm sure she won't think like that," Desmond says, although he's sure of no such thing. He vaguely remembers meeting Joy once on a visit to Connor, but he'd been bleeding at the time, and the memory isn't very clear.

 

"I guess we'll find out," Connor says. "I can't avoid her forever."

"You shouldn't avoid her at all," Desmond says. "Try talking to her next time she's here."

Connor makes a noncommittal grunting noise.

"Are you actually avoiding her?" Desmond asks. "I mean—are you hiding from her, or—"

"Maybe," Connor says, and he refuses to discuss the subject any further.

-//-

Joy never really knows what to do when she's at Leo's house. She usually just waits to go back home, because she gets nervous when she doesn't know where Matty is. But today she's hungry so she goes to see if someone will help her find food. She's hoping for Leo's mommy, but the first person she recognizes is Connor.

"I'm Joy," she announces, because she's supposed to tell people when she switches. "Food?"

Connor nods without looking at her, but he helps her find food, and then helps her climb up into Leo's chair at the table. "Why are you here?" Joy asks as she starts eating. "Why isn't Matty here?"

"It's… hard to explain," Connor says.

"Okay," Joy says. She eats in silence for a little bit longer. Then she says, "Are you going to go away?"

"Do you want me to?" Connor asks.

Joy shakes her head. "Nobody else is here  _ and  _ at home," she says. She likes having Connor here. Nothing else is the same when Joy comes to Leo's house, but Connor is  _ always  _ there. And he's a little nicer here than he is at home. "Don't go," she says, then remembers what Matty always tells her to say. "Don't go  _ please _ ."

He smiles a little Connor smile, but since he doesn't smile a lot, it makes Joy happy. She chatters to him about home while she eats, and feels a little bit less lonely than she usually does at Leo's house.


	229. Chapter 229

Matthew is getting used to Leo taking Joy's place. As the months wear on, he gets better at spotting the little signs that mean they've switched. Leo is a little quieter than his sister, at least while he's in this time. Matthew has seen him with Elena, as incurably noisy as any other toddler. But here, he's shy.

So when Matthew finds Joy sitting out behind the house, hugging her knees and watching the stars come out, he knows she isn't Joy anymore. He sits down next to Leo. If he'd still been Joy, Matthew would have hugged… him? Her? (Matthew is so bad at this—why does parenting have to be so hard?)

He can't hug Leo. Or he doesn't think he can. It's so strange, to suddenly have a son. Or to have a son sometimes.

"Mommy says all the stars have names," Leo says.

"They do," Matthew says.

"Do you know them?"

"A few."

"Like what?"

"Well—" Matthew finds the constellation he's looking for pretty quickly. He's made a point of searching it out ever since Joy was born. "Do you see those bright stars that are all grouped together?"

"Uh huh."

"That's the constellation Leo," Matthew says, and Leo straightens up and grins at him.

"I get my own constellation?" he asks. "There are stars just for  _ me?" _

Matthew just smiles.

"Where are Joy's stars?" Leo asks, when he's finished gaping at the constellation.

"She doesn't have any," Matthew says.

"But  _ I  _ do," Leo says, with a toddler's pride and certainty. He leans against Matthew's side, and they watch the stars until Leo falls asleep.

And when he wakes up the next morning… she is Joy.


	230. Chapter 230

Joy likes to wake up early, while Matty's still sleeping, and go downstairs for breakfast while Connor is eating. Someday she's going to beat him, and get to breakfast first. It's never happened yet, but Joy is determined.

This morning isn't that day, though. Joy wakes up with the sun, runs downstairs, and finds Connor already at the table. She thinks she sees him smile just a little behind a slice of bread, but Connor doesn’t smile too much. Not here, anyway. He smiles more at Leo's house.

But he gives her breakfast, and the two of them sit and eat in silence while the sun comes up outside the kitchen windows.

"You should bathe this morning," Connor tells her as they finish their food.

Joy wrinkles her nose.

"I think we're going to have guests today," Connor says.

"Who?" Joy asks. She's used to strangers showing up at the Homestead. But she doesn't have to  _ bathe  _ for most of them.

"Do you remember Jeanne?" Connor asks. Joy shakes her head no. "I'm not surprised," Connor says. "She hasn't been here since you were an infant."

"I'm four," Joy announces. She holds up the fingers on one hand, spread out. Connor reaches over and gently pushes her thumb back down.

"She's a good friend," Connor says. "When Matthew wakes up, tell him you need a bath before she gets here."

Joy pouts as Connor heads off to take care of whatever he's doing today, but she tells Matty anyway when he comes downstairs. Matty is  _ bad  _ at mornings. His hair sticks up all crazy, and trips a little on the stairs on his way down them. But he smiles at her, and Joy slides off her chair and runs over as fast as she can to give him a hug. He wraps his arms around her, and doesn't let go until he's a little more awake.

"Connor says I need a bath," she reports. "But I don't."

"Okay," Matty says. Joy smiles and hugs him harder. Then she runs out of the room before Connor can overrule Matty on the bath issue.

-//-

"Oh," Matty says. He's standing by the window in Joy's room, looking at the path up to the house and smiling a little. Joy is sulking while she dries herself off and works on getting dressed.

Connor had won the bath argument.

"What's wrong?" Joy asks.

"Nothing," Matty says. He turns around to help Joy finish dressing (even though she is  _ four _ , and big enough to do it herself). "Jeanne brought Rory. And Patrick." He picks up Joy—swings her around. "Do you remember Patrick?"

Joy shakes her head no.

"I don't think he or Rory have been here in a few years," Matty says. "But I think you'll like him—he's only a couple months older than you."

"Okay," Joy says, and holds tight onto Matty while he carries her downstairs.

There are three people outside, two of them grownups and one of them about Joy's age. She clings tighter to Matty, and peers over his shoulder at the new boy (who is hanging onto his daddy and looking at her the same way). Connor comes out after a couple minutes and then all the grownups talk about boring stuff together. Joy is relieved when Matty lets her down to play with the new boy.

Patrick. He says his name is Patrick, and he really likes to play hide and seek. They play all morning, and then they have to go inside and eat lunch. Then it's nap time, and after that Joy gets distracted with helping Connor with dinner. It's a pretty good day, even with the bath.

The problems don't start until after dinner, when the grownups are sitting around on the porch, and Joy is catching fireflies with Patrick.

"Can I tell you something?" Patrick says. "It's a  _ secret _ ."

"Tell me!" Joy says at once. She likes secrets.

Patrick leans closer, and Joy does too, so that their faces are only lit up by fireflies. "Papa says Matthew's my daddy too," he says. "I have  _ two  _ daddies. And a Maman."

Joy feels like Patrick's just punched her in the stomach. She lets her firefly go, and hugs herself tightly. "No!"

"Uh huh," Patrick says. He puffs up his chest.

"He's not allowed to be your daddy!" Joy yells. "He's  _ my _ Matty and I don't  _ got  _ anyone else!"

She's already crying when she gets inside. She's shaking and shivering by the time she gets to her room and curls up in a tiny little ball on her bed. Leo's in her head, poking at her and worried. Joy knows he can feel how upset she is, just like she can always feel what's going on with him.

But Leo has a mommy, and Joy doesn't have anything because Patrick is taking her Matty away. It's not fair. He already has a daddy, why does he need two?

She cries herself to sleep, and when she wakes up—probably late at night, because it's quiet and dark and Joy can hear crickets chirping outside—Matty is holding her in his lap and rocking her gently back and forth.

"Matty…" she rubs her face and tries not to cry again. "Don't go, Matty, Patrick already has a daddy. I need you more!"

"I'm not going anywhere," Matty says. "I'm never going to leave you, Joy. Okay? I promise."

"But Patrick  _ said— _ "

"Patrick is my son," Matty says. "Technically. It's complicated. But you're my daughter too, and I am never going to leave you, or let anything hurt you."

"You're not my daddy," Joy says. She's miserable—she wishes Matty was her daddy, but… He'd say, wouldn't he?

"Joy," Matty says. "Can you keep a secret?"

"I  _ love  _ secrets," Joy says. "I won't tell anyone."

"Promise?"

Joy crosses her heart with her finger like Leo's Uncle James showed her.

So Matty pulls her closer. "I'm Patrick's dad, but I'm also your dad and Leo's dad. And—" He hugs her, and Joy hugs back, suddenly desperate. "Leo is your brother, and Leo's mom is  _ your  _ mom. You have a family that loves you very much, I promise. It's just… a secret."

"Okay," Joy whispers. "I won't tell." Because who cares if anyone else knows? Joy finally has a daddy.


	231. Chapter 231

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a little oneshot side scene set during the Assassin's Creed movie. If you haven't seen it yet, this... might count as spoilers? I don't know, it depends how much you care about spoilers. (But also, you should go see the movie. If you're the kind of person that likes AC enough to sit around and read fanfiction, you'll probably enjoy the movie).
> 
> If you HAVE seen it, then [spoilers, spoilers] this scene takes place close to the end, when Cal comes out of the animus for the last time and sees just like a whole bunch of dead assassins, including his mom. Didn't make a lot of sense to me that he'd be seeing them all without synching to them in the animus, so I thought hey, why not explain it with visiting?

Cal's first visit very nearly comes too late. He's old by the time he meets them all—not _old man_ old yet by any means but old enough to have made too many mistakes already. They could have been there to help him and later, when Cal knows them better, he'll wish they had been.

But now, standing in the wreckage of the ruined animus, all Cal feels is numb confusion. The feeling is fast becoming familiar. This… feels like the end of everything. It feels like the end of _him_ , like his mind has finally shattered into bits and maybe taken something deeper with it, his soul maybe, whatever it is that makes him _Cal_.

He's trembling, still half in the past, flickering figures phasing in and out of his vision. Cal feels like he's going to be sick, or like he's just going to fly apart into dust and float away. He's panting, short and sharp and also just a little bit panicked, and that's when he feels the hand come down on his back and of course he almost jumps straight out of his skin because he hadn't been expecting that at all.

Cal spins around before he knows what he's doing (because he _doesn't_ know what he's doing, he has no control over the things the animus has put in his head or the way it's taught his body to move). And then he freezes, all at once, and tries not to breathe. _Fuck_ , he hates this. What's it called, the bleeding effect? Whatever it is, it's going to drive him crazy, if it hasn't already—

And then Aguilar speaks. Not just something random from a memory Cal's lived through, some fancy Assassin speech in centuries old Spanish. It should be impossible but he actually… he looks Cal straight in the eye and he says, "Calm down, Cal."

It shouldn't work. If anything, having his ancestor talking straight to him like this _should_ make Cal even more panicked and terrified. Instead, he feels his muscles relax and his pounding heartbeat slow a little. He's seen visions, hallucinations, whatever, of Aguilar before. This feels different, somehow. Less like a memory, more… real.

"You know my name," Cal mumbles.

In the shadows under his hood, it almost actually looks like Aguilar smiles. "I know you fairly well," he says.

"But how?" Cal demands. "That's not how this works, is it? I can see—look, I see _your_ memories but there's no way you can see mine, so you shouldn't know me."

"It has nothing to do with the animus," Aguilar says.

"Then what are you doing here?"

But it's not Aguilar who answers, it's someone else. A woman's voice, who tells him "It's called visiting," and Cal swears he can feel his heart actually stop. He looks sideways, away from Aguilar, and it's his mom standing there. Even younger than she is in his memories, forever frozen in the day of her death. She smiles at him, gentle and understanding. There are other people, stretched out behind her and Aguilar, but Cal only takes a second or two to realize they're strangers. Doesn't matter who they are, doesn't matter at all because his mom's here, somehow, and everything is going to be okay.

Later, of course, when he understands visiting, when he's seen what it has to offer, Cal will come to know that these seven people matter more than anyone else in the world. But he's not there yet. He's not anywhere close to there.

"This is early for you," his mom says. "You haven't been visiting long, right?"

"I don't know what that means," Cal says, half pleading. (Please tell me what you're talking about. Please let it make sense. Please don't let me be crazy. Please tell me you're really _here_ )

"I think it's his first visit," Aguilar says.

"Hmm," Cal's mom agrees. She glances around them, at the chaos of the animus room, and shakes her head. "But there's no time to explain now. All you need to know today is that we are on your side. We're here for you, Cal. Everything's going to be okay."

He doesn't doubt that for even a second. There's just… something in the air here. Despite everything that's happened in the past couple of days, Cal suddenly feels safe. "Thank you," he whispers.

And after that—

Well, a lot of things happen after that. But his mom's right. Everything turns out okay.


End file.
